In 2015, as conflict raged in the Central African Republic, Evelyne (not her real name) was returning from selling cassava leaves near Boda, in the country’s southwest, when an anti-balaka fighter threw her on the ground, raped her, and left her bleeding. She was around 14 years old.

Two months after the rape, Evelyne realized she was pregnant. Orphaned by the conflict, she sold cassava leaves to afford necessities in preparation for the baby, but mostly she wanted to study. “I was very angry because I couldn’t go to school,” she said. “My aunt refused. She said I need to give birth first.”

Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the war triggered in late 2012, when the largely Muslim Seleka rebels began a campaign of violence and terror to seize power, which led to reprisal attacks by groups of “anti-balaka” that formed in response. Both sides have engaged in systematic and widespread sexual violence and sexual slavery as a tool of war.

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For Evelyne and other girls I interviewed in the Central African Republic, rape not only had far-reaching physical and emotional repercussions, it interrupted their education. This year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign urges communities to “Leave No One Behind.” It is a good reminder that loss of access to education is one of many devastating consequences of sexual violence for girls.

Some girls never return to school after rape because of stigma and humiliation. Others said that either they were too afraid or family members, fearing for their safety, wouldn’t permit their return, especially if sexual violence occurred on their way to or from class.

Sexual violence survivors who do return to school often lack support to continue their education. Evelyne ultimately returned to class, but, with no family to care for the baby, she struggled. “I am not at peace,” she said, “When I go to school, I think about the baby at home.”

Governments, donors, and service providers should commit to improving access to education so girls who suffer sexual or other gender-based violence in conflict are not further victimized. They should support girls’ return to school by providing medical, psychosocial, and socioeconomic help, and combat stigmatization of rape survivors and pregnant students through community education.

These girls should not be left behind. 

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“I started ironing clothes and he started pulling me to try and rape me. I was lucky the younger brother came back and rang the doorbell–he then left,” 21-year-old “Basma N.,” (not her real name) told me. In February in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital, Basma told me that her male employer’s brother attempted to rape her twice in 2015 when she was working in Oman as a domestic worker.

When conducting research on abuse of Tanzanian domestic workers in Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), I spoke to 19 former domestic workers who said their employers or other male members of the household sexually harassed or assaulted them.

The sexual harassment against and by celebrities has received new and prominent recognition. But the experiences of less privileged groups--particularly domestic workers, including the pervasive threat of sexual assault, have largely remained invisible.

Isolating and harsh working conditions leave domestic workers vulnerable to sexual abuse. Almost all of the 50 Tanzanian domestic workers I interviewed said their employers confiscated their passports, forced them to work seven days a week, and almost half said their employers forcibly confined them to their homes or residential compounds, making escape difficult. Most women said their employers restricted their communication for weeks or months, preventing them from seeking help from the outside world. Many also described how they lived with little to no privacy–some sleeping on the floor of storage rooms or living rooms, or without locks or keys to their bedroom doors.

The women who described sexual harassment and assault said that male family members groped them, exposed themselves, chased them around the house, and entered their rooms late at night. Several described attempted rape. Twenty-year-old “Jamila A.” said all the men in the family she worked for in Oman, “even the old man,” assaulted her and hid her room keys so she could not lock her bedroom door. 

“Anisa L.,” 28, said her employer in Dubai repeatedly exposed his genitals to her and a fellow domestic worker. “He would take down his trousers, and would say: ‘Look, did you see? it is nice?’ … Always doing that, just pulling down his pants. When we saw him, we would start running.”

The women also said the men harassing them became violent when they refused their advances, threatened to dismiss them or make false claims to their wives that the women had seduced them. Several women said they could not communicate with their female employers due to language barriers or feared dismissal if they complained. If they did complain, their female employers did not believe them, placed the burden on them to avoid the harassment, or fired them. Many women said when they asked to leave, their employers or agents demanded repayment of recruitment costs, often far more than they had earned.

“Hidaya Z.,” 30, went to file a complaint with the Oman police in 2016 after a male member of the family she was working for sexually assaulted her. The police told her that her employer had pressed charges against her for running away. They told her to pay a fine of 200 OMR ($520) or spend three months in jail. Oman does not criminalize non-penetrative sexual assault or harassment, as in her case.  

A former official at the Tanzanian embassy in Oman said none of the rape cases reported to the police by domestic workers they assisted had moved forward, either because the women refused to undergo forensic tests, as the doctor was a man, or the police, after questioning the women, did not believe they had been raped. In the Gulf region, when authorities do not believe the claim, reporting a rape can be considered a confession of consensual sexual relations, prompting charges of zina (sexual relations outside of marriage) against the rape victim.

Compounding the lack of justice abroad, due to the stigma, migrant domestic workers rarely reported sexual violence when they returned to Tanzania, suffering in silence.  “Atiya Z.” told me that while she was in Oman her employer beat and raped her anally to punish her for falling sick, then put her on a flight back to Tanzania the next day: “I was scared, traumatized, and didn’t know who to speak to.” While she reported the beating and other abuse when she returned, she had not told anyone about the rape until she spoke to me.

While the #MeToo outcry is exposing sexual harassment mostly in the West, we should support women across the globe, including those whose workplaces are their abusers’ homes. Oman, the UAE, and other Gulf states should reform the laws and policies that facilitate such abuse against migrant domestic workers and stop treating sexual violence survivors as criminals. Only then might “Basma,” “Atiya,” “Jamila,” “Anisa,” “Hidaya,” and countless other women work free of the threat of sexual violence and impunity for their attackers.

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“I will never report such a case again,” said Farida, a midwife in rural Afghanistan, after a judge humiliated her in a public courtroom for her efforts to document a case of sexual assault involving two child victims.

Farida, a pseudonym, is the only woman with any medical training within 80 kilometers of her remote mountain village. Which is why, about six months ago, a local family turned to her for help when their 6 and 7-year-old daughters complained of abdominal pain. After examining the girls, Farida found they had injuries consistent with sexual assault, and reported this to the district prosecutor’s office.

Over the next two months, the girls were sent three times for so-called “virginity examinations” – invasive procedures Afghan government doctors perform, purportedly to determine whether a woman or girl is a “virgin.” In reality, these tests have no scientific validity and can constitute sexual assault. The World Health Organization has called them degrading and urges health workers not to perform them. For the girls Farida tried to help, the trauma and humiliation of repeated examinations compounded the initial abuse. When the girls’ parents brought them to a clinic for the third time, they sobbed and begged not to be tested again.

The girls’ attacker – a 17-year-old boy – was ultimately convicted of sexual assault. But because the “virginity test” could not prove that penetration had occurred, the judge threatened the midwife, saying, “I could sentence you to imprisonment for false reporting [of rape], but I forgive you this time, as you are a woman, but be careful in the future.” Farida, who told us she had followed appropriate procedure in reporting the girls’ injuries, also faced trouble at home; her neighbors said she had dishonored their community by reporting the case in the first place. As a result, future cases of sexual violence in the village are more likely to go unreported.

In a 2016 report, the Afghan government’s Independent Human Rights Commission called “virginity tests” a form of sexual assault that should be abolished. Afghan officials claim that the government had since banned the examinations, but officials have told Human Rights Watch that the practice remains widespread, and many judges, prosecutors, and police officials told us they routinely order virginity tests.

Until the Afghan government completely ends this abusive practice and addresses rampant discrimination against women and girls in the criminal justice system, victims of sexual assault will remain silent lest they be assaulted all over again.

Judith Wavinya*, 30, was walking home on a cool August night in her neighborhood of Dandora in Nairobi, after spending the evening with her sister. She had to get back home to her three children and to prepare for the new day – she made a living hawking bananas in the neighborhood of Eastleigh and had to get up early the next morning to get to work.

Wavinya, who speaks with a small, faltering voice, tries to smile, but it does not quite erase the pain in her eyes. She looks away, scratches her short hair, dyed brown at the tips. When she leans forward, tears start streaming down her cheeks and she tugs nervously at her t-shirt.

The rape had changed everything. “To be honest, I have nothing now. They finished me,” she says.

Wavinya is just one of many women and girls, along with some men and boys, who are victims of sexual violence during Kenya’s recent elections. Human Rights Watch spoke to about 70 survivors who said police, ordinary Kenyans, or militia groups raped them during the prolonged election period between August and October. Many of these crimes remain unreported and uninvestigated.

It was a normal night, Wavinya said, the familiar tight winding streets were dimly lit. She could see clearly, even though there was no moonlight. She felt mostly safe as people were walking around, many of them celebrating the announcement of the new president after the 2017 August elections. Then she came to a group of young men, two of them approached her menacingly. When she looked down, she could see that they had knives pointing towards her. They inched the knives close to her sides.

December 14, 2017Report

“They Were Men in Uniform”

Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Kenya’s 2017 Elections

• Download the full report in English

“I was scared, she says. “They told me to walk with them and I did. They asked me whether I knew them and where I lived. I recognized one of them, but I did not say anything. I could not.”

They walked to a secluded area. There were many rocks and trash littered the ground. No one seemed to be close by, although she could still hear the chatter of celebrations in the distance. The men asked her to take off her clothes and lie down on the rocks.

“I lay down and they raped me, anally and vaginally,” she says “They beat me badly and hurt my left ear. I was crying, but they did not stop.” Wavinya pauses and sobs quietly, shaking her head.

When they let her go, Wavinya said she walked slowly, painfully and spoke to some men who helped her get to a medical center. She got medical treatment and was advised to go to the police. By day break, she got to the police station to report the incident. Wavinya then went home to her children.

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Although she went to the police for help, she stopped following up on the case because she feared that her attackers might come back to hurt her. Also, she felt the police were not doing all they could to catch them. The man who raped her, after all, lives in the same neighborhood and is well known. “He walks around freely, but how can I go to the police and demand that they arrest him?” she wonders. “Why haven’t they arrested him already, yet I told them who he was?”

When the father of her children heard that she was raped, he told her that he would not support the children anymore because he felt she was now damaged. “Even my neighbors and friends point at me and call me names. They know I was raped. They laugh at me as if it was my fault.”

Many survivors of sexual violence who spoke to Human Rights Watch say they face stigma in their communities. It is difficult for them to speak openly when they are shunned by loved ones. Although some seek medical assistance, most opt to suffer physical and psychological trauma in silence.

Some survivors do not receive support when they seek help from authorities, and many of them feel that police are not doing enough to follow up on cases of sexual violence.

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Wavinya said she stopped going to Eastleigh for work because of the injuries she suffered. She depleted her savings and took a job cleaning tiles at a building company to put food on the table for her children. Her left ear still hurts from the beating. She feels pain when passing stool or urinating. Sometimes community workers put her in touch with NGOs who provide support. But it’s not enough.

Wavinya is struggling. She relives the incident daily, and it weighs on her during the night. “I am in pain all the time. I cannot sleep much, I worry about my children, how will I support them now? I keep thinking about what those men did to me. With all these thoughts, I stay up all night wondering about my future.”

Last year, Human Rights Watch documented government laxity in supporting survivors of sexual violence following Kenya’s 2007-2008 post-election violence. So far, there has been little effort in prosecuting those cases of sexual violence. Once more, Kenyans have suffered sexual violence during the election period, and again, they are not receiving medical or psychological support. Police are unwilling to investigate these crimes, a clear indication that the state authorities do not seem to care enough about sexual violence to take any adequate measures to protect Kenyans from it, or treat and support survivors.

Wavinya’s main concern right now is her children. She worries they will not go back to school in January after the holidays, as she cannot afford the schools fees, and since she has no job and is still ailing. She wants to see her children do well in life, and it pains her that her rape has made it more difficult for them.

Like Wavinya, many women are counting on their government to help them heal from the pain of rape and to move on with their lives. It should not ignore them. “I want my children to do well,” Wavinya says. “That is why I fought for my justice and to get better. I want to take care of them and so that they have a good life.”

*name changed for her safety 

“The impact of sexual violence on survivors is devastating,” said Agnes Odhiambo, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Almost all women and girls we spoke to suffered physical harm and profound mental trauma and feared that their attackers may never be held accountable.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 68 females, three male survivors of sexual violence, and 12 witnesses in Mathare, Dandora, and Kibera in Nairobi, and in Kisumu and Bungoma in western Kenya. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 12 Kenyan and international civil society activists and community volunteers providing services to women. Human Rights Watch identified significant barriers that prevent many survivors from getting even basic medical and mental health support services and from seeking justice.

Witness: Silently Struggling with Rape in Kenya

Judith was raped during Kenya’s 2017 elections and police arrested no one.

Read Judith’s story

The women and girls interviewed described brutal gang rapes involving two or more attackers. Many said that they were raped vaginally and anally, that they were penetrated with objects, or that dirt was inserted into their private parts. Some were raped in the presence of family members, including young children. Most women said they were raped by policemen or men in uniform, many of whom carried guns, batons, teargas canisters, whips, and wore helmets and other anti-riot gear. In at least one case, a girl died after being raped.

A 27-year-old woman interviewed had given birth on August 7, and was raped by three policemen on August 11. “I feel useless,” she said, describing her life afterward. “I don’t speak to people. I feel so sad. I feel as if I have reached the end. I think of killing myself.”

Many women and girls said they suffered incapacitating physical injury or experienced other health consequences that left some unable to work or care for their families. Young girls said they experience nightmares, lack of sleep, listlessness, fear, and anxiety that limits their ability to study.

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Most had not received post-rape medical or psychological care, including medication to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy. Barriers included insecurity, the cost of services or transportation, stigma, a lack of health facilities, and a lack of information about the importance of timely treatment or where survivors could get free treatment. Some women who received medical treatment said that the services were not comprehensive, there was no forensic documentation of sexual violence, or that they did not get appropriate referrals for medical treatment, counseling support, or to the criminal justice system.

A history of impunity for sexual violence in Kenya seriously undermines women’s ability to report sexual crimes to the police, Human Rights Watch said. Very few women said they made police reports, and many expressed a lack of confidence in the police due to a long history of human rights abuses and corruption. Others said they feared retaliation. Some women who did try to report sexual violence said that police sent them away without taking statements, ridiculed or verbally abused them, or failed to follow up on complaints.

December 14, 2017Report

“They Were Men in Uniform”

Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Kenya’s 2017 Elections

• Download the full report in English

One woman who said she was raped in the presence of police, along with five other women, described what happen when they tried to report the attack: “They asked, ‘How do you know they were police?’ They said, ‘If you had been raped you would have gone to hospital first. Where is the evidence? How can we believe you?’ They told us we must have enjoyed the rape.”

The Kenyan government has long ignored election-related sexual crimes and victims’ suffering, Human Rights Watch said. Thousands of women and girls are estimated to have been raped during the 2007-2008 political violence, including by state security agents. They continue to suffer serious physical and psychological trauma, and socioeconomic hardship almost a decade later, and very few cases have been properly investigated or attackers held accountable.

Past government plans to assist victims of the 2007-2008 violence have excluded rape survivors, and they have not received medical or other assistance. Barriers to reporting, problems with the collection of forensic evidence, and the unwillingness of authorities to initiate genuine, credible, and fair investigations and prosecutions to punish attackers were key challenges in Kenya after the 2007-2008 election-related rapes, and remain a problem.

The Kenyan government should change its approach. It should ensure that all sexual assault victims get timely, quality, and confidential post-rape treatment, including psychosocial, or mental health, care for themselves and their families, and inform communities where victims can get post-rape care, including free treatment. The Kenyan government should ensure that credible investigations are conducted into all allegations of elections-related sexual violence.

“Sexual violence survivors should not be left suffering and ashamed of being victims while the Kenyan government shows no shame at failing to meet their needs or to prosecute their attackers,” Odhiambo said. “Instead of downplaying the election-related sexual abuse, the Kenyan government should ensure that all survivors get appropriate medical care and justice.”

Selected Accounts

Names of victims have been changed for their protection.

Rose Otieno, 37, was in her house with her five children on the night of August 11. She said that two men dressed in green-and-black uniforms, boots, and helmets broke into her house. One had a gun, the other a baton and a whip. They asked her where her husband was. “One asked me to say, ‘I do not support Raila [Odinga, the presidential challenger], I support Uhuru [Kenyatta, the winner].’ I refused…. The other one said, ‘Let’s teach her a lesson.’ He raped me in the presence of my children.” She said that due to the stigma and rejection attached to rape: “I didn’t go to hospital. I feared, I was ashamed. I have never gone to hospital. I feared because if you tell someone, even the doctor, you will hear about it.”

Liz Nzau said that she was on her way home from work on the night of August 11 when she met a group of young Kikuyu men who were out celebrating Kenyatta’s victory. They asked her, “Why are you not joining the celebration? You are Luo, you are NASA [National Super Alliance] supporter.” She said: “They took me into a shack where there were five other women. They brought some dirty-looking men who raped us as police walked around the shack. They were moving from one woman to another. They were slapping us and beating us with a rubber whip, and urinating on us. One of the women had her [menstrual] period and they wore a plastic paper bag when raping her. One of the women said they inserted a medicine bottle in her anus.”

On August 11, Gladys Moraa went to help her neighbor’s young child, who had been hit with a teargas canister. In the ensuing chaos, Grace tripped and fell: “A police officer kicked me on my upper back with his booted feet. I couldn’t move. He raped me and left. Another one came, kicked me on the stomach and back, and raped me. I thought I would die. I was in serious pain.” “My back pains a lot,” she said. “My business was destroyed, and now I do casual work washing for people. But most of the time it is difficult. I have problems bending.”

Gladys Moraa said that since she was raped: “even a slight sound scares me. I used to have nightmares. If I got counseling, it would really help me. I feel so sad when I remember. I was not counseled at the hospital.” Moraa heard a scream as a Human Rights Watch researcher was interviewing her and she jumped out of her seat saying, “Are those the police? Are those police?”

Purity Onyancha said that her 17-year-old daughter, Peris Onyancha, and a friend were gang raped together on August 14. Peris was left for dead, and her friend died following the rape. “She trembles when she sees boys,” the mother said. “I am worried about her mental health, and how she will perform at school. Sometimes her teacher calls me to say she is not talking, or she’s just walking around the school. When I talk to her, she says she is feeling dizzy and has headache, but when she is checked in the hospital there is nothing.”

Mercy Maina and her sister were raped on the night of August 13 by men she described as “police with rastas [dreadlocks].” She said that since the rape, “I feel pain during sex and there is a yellowish discharge. I smell and I have to shower many times a day. When I go near people I feel anxious, like they will smell me.”

Grace Kungu said she was raped on August 12 on her way home from work:

"They took me to an unfinished building and all four raped me in front [vaginally] and behind [anally]. Since that day, when I am pressed urine just comes out. Even stool, if I hold for long I find that I have stained my underwear. I wear a sanitary pad sometimes or tissue or a handkerchief to prevent leakage. I have a lot of pain in my lower abdomen. I take painkillers all the time."

Widespread sexual violence marred Kenya’s 2017 elections. The Kenyan government should urgently take steps to protect women and girls, as well as men and boys, from sexual violence.

Human Rights Watch found that the government failed to prevent election-related sexual violence, properly investigate cases, hold attackers accountable, and ensure that survivors have access to comprehensive, quality, and timely post-rape care. Many attacks were by security forces, survivors said.

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Eighty percent of female university students who have been sexually assaulted do not report it. I am one of them. Now, I fear that the US Department of Education will make it even harder for survivors like me to come forward.

During my freshman spring at Dartmouth College, I ran into a man I had only met once at a social gathering. Afterwards, he led me to his room to continue a conversation, but then became aggressive. He repeatedly ignored my calls to stop, and I became numb as I lost control of my body. Because there were no witnesses, and I took days to process the event, reporting it to police and taking him to court seemed hopeless. I feared social stigma, reprisal, and academic repercussions from the hours needed to report. He graduated that spring.

Earlier that year, my 18-year-old classmate was raped by a man who entered her room while she was asleep. She notified the police and I watched as she withstood weeks of fierce and skeptical cross-examination by a famous attorney. The trial, which included character witness testimony focused on the fact that she had previously drank alcohol and invited overnight guests, resulted in a not guilty verdict. Her attacker was cleared of seven charges of rape and finished his degree. My classmate transferred to another university.

The lesson my friends and I learned was this – stay silent, or be victimized further. The process of reporting an assault can retraumatize a survivor and the system is often stacked against victims in a variety of ways, as Human Rights Watch researchers found in a 2014 study of the police’s handling of sexual assault cases in Washington, DC.

Properly enforced legislation like Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, can help stop violence against women. While Title IX is known for opening up athletic opportunities for female students, it also requires federally funded educational institutions to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and assault. Implementation has been patchy, but Obama-era guidance elaborated schools’ obligations and marked a new era of increased scrutiny and enforcement.

But in September, the Department of Education issued a letter rescinding this guidance. Candice Jackson, then the department’s acting head of civil rights said, 90 percent of campus sexual assault allegations either, “fall into the category of, ‘we were both drunk,’” or, “we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.” Jackson later apologized for this dangerous misrepresentation, but the Trump administration has yet to give us any reason to have faith in its intentions. They also said police are better equipped to handle campus rape. But the truth is that police often fail– and even re-traumatize – women who come forward to report sexual assault.

Rape is already extremely underreported in the US, especially by students survivors. In this #MeToo moment, the government should be strengthening, not walking back support to survivors.

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A 22-year-old Dalit woman from Lalitpur district in Uttar Pradesh, reported being raped in January 2016. The police were reluctant to act because the man accused was a local leader of a political party with powerful caste affiliations. Finally, after she went to court in March 2016, a judge ordered the police to file a First Information Report (FIR) to begin the investigation. But without proper protection, the woman and her husband had to flee the village and move hundreds of kilometers away after repeated threats and harassment from the accused and others in the village.

“We weren’t able to stay in the village because the accused were ready to kill us and the police did not take any action against them,” she said. “There’s no one for us.”

In 2013, India enacted new and stronger laws to deal with rape and sexual violence against women, leading to greater number of girls and women willing to report such crimes. These were important initiatives by the government to respond to the public dismay over cases of rape and other violent attacks. However, lack of victim and witness protection acts as a significant barrier to obtain justice. It deters victims from cooperating with investigations and testifying in court, and makes it more likely they will turn “hostile” and retract earlier statements, contributing to unwarranted acquittals.

November 8, 2017Report

“Everyone Blames Me”

Barriers to Justice and Support Services for Sexual Assault Survivors in India

• Download the full report in English
• हिंदी में पूरी रिपोर्ट डाउनलोड करें (Download the full report in Hindi)

Victims and witnesses of serious crimes are particularly at risk when the perpetrator is powerful, influential, or rich and the victims or witnesses belong to a socially or economically marginalised community. Girls and women who report sexual violence are often even more vulnerable and face extreme pressure or direct threats from the accused, as Human Rights Watch found in its report “Everyone Blames Me”: Barriers to Justice and Support Services for Sexual Assault Survivors in India.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly observed that India needs a witness protection scheme. In 2006, the Law Commission of India issued detailed recommendations for “administrative or legislative action” for witness protection. Yet to date India has not enacted a law or developed a nationwide scheme for witness protection outside the courtrooms.

How Delhi Follows Up on Witness Protection

In the capital, Delhi, however, the authorities took the important initiative to introduce a Witness Protection Scheme in 2015. The Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) passes protection orders in each case after evaluating the threat. The Commissioner of Police is responsible for the overall implementation of the witness protection orders. Protection measures can include armed police protection, regular patrolling around witnesses’ house, installing closed-circuit television cameras, and relocation.

Once the DSLSA receives an application for protection, it seeks a threat analysis report from a senior police officer of the district or unit investigating the case. DSLSA is required to interact with the witness or others linked to the prosecution to determine protection needs, and make a final order within seven working days of the application being filed and pass interim protection orders, if needed.

The Delhi State Legal Services Authority has received 45 cases since 2015, including five cases of rape, four cases of child abuse, and one case of acid attack. “In most cases, the victim or witness have the most to fear until they depose in court,” said Geetanjali Goel, special secretary at the DSLSA. “Usually after that, witnesses don’t want protection. Our job is to provide protection until the witness wants it.”

While the Delhi scheme can provide a good model for the rest of the country, there are still challenges. The scheme provides for a witness protection fund, but so far, no such fund is functional. Lack of a fund can contribute to delays in witness protection orders, especially when it requires infrastructure such as installation of CCTV cameras.

The police were also supposed to set up a Witness Protection Cell, dedicated to implementing the scheme and submitting monthly reports to the DSLSA. In the absence of such a cell, DSLSA currently seeks its own follow-up reports in each case. While the scheme is new, currently there are no mechanisms in place to evaluate its working or data to determine whether protection in a case was effective.

Anatomy of Threat and Intimidation

Aside from the scheme in Delhi, courts across the country have at times ordered protection of victims and witnesses in sensitive cases. In 2013, in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh state, seven women reported being gang raped during the communal violence in September that killed over 60 people and displaced thousands. The women petitioned the court for security and in January 2014, the Supreme Court directed the state to provide protection. Two police constables—an armed male and a female–were provided to each woman around-the-clock. However, their lawyer said, the protection wasn’t sufficient.

“In cases where the vulnerability is so high, just giving protection by armed constables does not solve anything. It does not take into account the anatomy of the threat and intimidation,” said advocate Vrinda Grover, who represented the victims in Supreme Court.

As is common in cases of violence against women, besides threat of physical attack, the intimidation can be far more insidious, communicated to the victim and her family through elders, powerful or influential men, and thugs in the community.

Grover said a fast-track court should have recorded their statements and promptly examined them as witnesses. “The delays proved to be fatal to the case,” she said. Out of seven women who reported being gang raped, one died and at least three turned hostile. One woman is still willing to testify, but Grover along with civil society groups had to relocate her and her family out of the state for her safety. Meanwhile, they are waiting for the Allahabad High Court’s decision on their application to transfer the case out of Muzaffarnagar district.

Barriers to an Effective Witness Protection Scheme

A key barrier to an effective witness protection scheme in India is also the lack of independence and accountability of the police. In Barkha’s case, police took eight months to file a First Information Report after a court order. Forced to live hundreds of miles away from her village, unable to follow up on her case, Barkha says she has lost hope for justice.

If Barkha and others like her receive protection and support after they file complaints for rape, sexual assault, and other violent crimes, they would have a greater chance to obtain justice. For this to happen, the government will need to enact an effective witness and victim protection law and ensure it is adequately funded.

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Human Rights Watch spoke with 12 survivors of severe domestic abuse in Armenia. The women said their husbands or male partners punched and kicked them, raped them, struck them with furniture and other objects, confined them in their homes, stalked them, and threatened or attempted to kill them with knives or other sharp objects. Five women said the attacks against them continued during pregnancy; three said they had miscarriages after their husbands beat them.

“Armenian authorities have failed to protect women and others from domestic violence, putting women’s and children’s health and lives in jeopardy,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The new law is one important step, but until authorities take reports of domestic violence seriously and ensure that women and children get the legal, medical, and social help they need, the danger remains.”

Those interviewed said that when they reported abuse to police or other authorities, the authorities did nothing to prevent further violence, investigate cases, or hold the attackers accountable. In some cases, the authorities encouraged women to drop complaints and reconcile with their abusers. The authorities did not refer the women for services or assistance.

Armenia’s Coalition to Stop Violence against Women, an alliance of nongovernmental women’s rights organizations, reported that at least four women were killed by their partners or other family members in the first half of 2017, and at least 50 were killed between 2010 and 2017. The Coalition received 5,299 calls about incidents of domestic violence from January through September 2017.

In one case Human Rights Watch documented, Gayane (not her real name), 45, said that her former husband had repeatedly beat her during their eight-year marriage, stalked her after she divorced him, and frequently broke into her house to rob and attack her, most recently in November. “He grabbed me by the hair and threw me on to the sofa,” Gayane said. “He jumped on top of me and put his elbows on my throat, trying to strangle me. I bit him in the arm and he let go, but he dragged me off the sofa, threw me down on the floor, and started to kick me all over, shouting, ‘Die!’”

When Gayane ran to the police in her nightclothes, they said, “Oh, so you came and want to do something about your husband? He beat you? And so? Why did you let him in?” After receiving treatment at the hospital for a sprained wrist and numerous bruises, Gayane returned home to find her former husband asleep in her house with her two sons. Police refused to intervene.

Children witnessed abuse against their mothers, often for many years, and several women said their husbands committed violence against their children. Human Rights Watch also documented other family members, such as in-laws, abused women.

The new law requires police to urgently intervene “when there is a reasonable assumption of an immediate threat of repetition or the continuation of violence” in the family. Urgent measures include police removing the alleged attacker from the home and prohibiting them from approaching or communicating with the victim. Courts can issue six-month protection orders, with two possible three-month extensions.

Many women said they lived with their abusers for years because they had no means of escape. The country has only two domestic violence shelters, both in the capital, Yerevan, run by nongovernmental organizations, each with a capacity for five women and their children. Council of Europe standards call for at least one specialized shelter in every region, and one shelter space per 10,000 people. With a population of approximately 2.9 million, Armenia should have approximately 290 shelter spaces. The new law mandates creating government-run shelters, but does not specify the number of shelters or their capacity. 

The law defines domestic violence as “a physical, sexual, psychological, or economic act of violence” between family members, including spouses in unregistered marriages. It is not clear if the law applies to couples who are not in registered or unregistered marriages.

Just before submitting the law to parliament in mid-November, the government revised the law to include “strengthening of traditional values in the family” as a key principle. Authorities also changed the title to add the concept of “restoring harmony in the family.”

The Coalition to Stop Violence against Women expressed concerns that the new law’s principle of “traditional values” could be used to reinforce obsolete and problematic gender roles and stereotypes. Activists also fear an emphasis on “restoring harmony” could be used to pressure women to remain in abusive relationships.

During a December 6 meeting, Armenia’s minister of justice, David Harutyunyan, told Human Rights Watch that the concept of “restoring harmony in the family” recognizes the government’s obligation to not only protect victims, but to provide services to the alleged abuser, such as alcohol or drug treatment. He said that these initiatives would not take priority over protection.

The new law requires authorities to investigate alleged crimes in the family even if the victim withdraws a complaint to the police. It also mandates training for police, prosecutors, judges and others in the criminal justice system on how to respond to complaints and investigate and prosecute cases.

The European Union insisted the government of Armenia pass a domestic violence law as a condition for certain budgetary support. The European Commission also called on Armenia to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. In late December, the government approved the possible signature of the convention, but has not yet done so.

“Women in Armenia need the government to provide meaningful protection from abusive husbands and partners, not to reinforce gender stereotypes about men’s dominance or family roles that can contribute to violence in the first place,” Buchanan said.

Accounts from Domestic Violence Survivors

Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with 12 survivors of domestic violence in Armenia: 11 in December 2017 and one in May 2016. Human Rights Watch also interviewed women’s rights activists and representatives of organizations providing services to survivors of domestic violence, who described similar accounts of abuse, authorities’ response to domestic violence, and obstacles to accessing services for survivors. Everyone interviewed was informed of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways the information would be used. All provided verbal informed consent. The interviews highlighted survivors’ experiences and the legal and other protection gaps that the government should address, including through the new law on family violence. Where necessary, pseudonyms have been used to protect interviewees’ identities.

“Armine”

From the first weeks of her marriage in 2004, at age 19, Armine’s husband abused her:

After we were married just one or two weeks, he hit me in the face. When he stayed out late, and I asked him where he was, this would set off beatings. When I was seven months pregnant with our first child he beat me, including in my belly. According to the doctor, this injured the baby and he was born with a problem in his spine.

Then my husband started to drink, and it was as if I just made mistake after mistake. He would humiliate me. He would take all the sheets and blankets off the bed and demand that I remake it. He would refuse to eat what I prepared and demand I go out and get something else. I can’t even pronounce the words he would say to me to insult me. They were all the worst words.

Later, he started to use sharp objects. Sometimes he would come home late at night and I would be asleep in my bed with my sons on either side of me. He would jump on top of me and put the knife to my neck and say, “I’ll kill you!”

Armine said her husband broke her rib during one beating, and broke her arm during another:

I was sitting at the table across from him with my youngest son in my arms. My husband got angry and picked up the table and turned it over. I tried to stop the table from crashing onto me, but it broke my right arm. I went to the hospital and got a cast. When they asked at the hospital what had happened, I lied and said I fell.

Armine also said that if she tried to protect herself, her husband would break furniture, throw household objects and smash windows. On one occasion, neighbors called an ambulance, hoping the medics could remove Armine’s husband. Medical workers refused to intervene saying, “He’s not a patient for us, take him to the psychiatric hospital.” They left without calling the police or telling Armine how she could get help.

One night in 2014 after her husband threatened to kill her with a knife and hit her younger son, Armine fled the house with her two children. Her former husband stalked her relentlessly for two years:

He would come to my aunt’s house. He would appear on the street as I took the kids to school. He would swear at me, demand that we get back together. Other times he would stand in front of me on the sidewalk and not let me pass. Or he would grab me by the arm or by my purse, trying to make me go with him.

In 2015, Armine lost her job in a medical center after her then-former husband twice came to her workplace:

I worked a 24-hour shift. He came one night and was drunk. He said ‘I came to see if you are actually working or if you are doing something with some lover. I won’t let you work anywhere. I will slit your throat!’ After that the director came and told me I shouldn’t come to work anymore. He said, ‘It’s not ok for your husband to come here and sort out your family problems.’

The medical center director did not offer Armine any assistance.

She said the police failed to protect her:

After we were divorced, I called the police four or five times when my [former]husband showed up at my aunt’s house. They would come, take him away, then let him go after five minutes. One time I wrote a complaint to the police. The officer said, ‘We can’t do anything. We can’t detain him. There is no law.’ The investigator who received a complaint said that the only possibility was a court process with the outcome being a monetary fine for him. I decided it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t have the money to pay for a fine.

Armine described her ongoing anxiety and fears after more than a decade of abuse. She said, “I haven’t heard from him, and I believe he is not living in Armenia anymore, but I am still scared. I go to work early in the morning, when it is still dark out. I am extremely anxious from the time I leave home until I get to work. If I hear footsteps behind me, I am afraid it’s him.”

Taguhi

Taguhi, 38, and her husband married in February 2014. She described frequent beatings for more than two years, including when she was pregnant in 2014. In another incident, her husband beat her and threatened her with a knife while she was holding their infant son. Taguhi frequently sought refuge at a friend’s home or with her parents, during which time her husband would threaten, stalk, and attack her. Taguhi’s husband also attacked her father and broke the window of her father’s car in 2015, she said. Although her father complained to police, they closed their investigation, saying there was a lack of evidence of a crime.

Taghuhi filed complaints with the police following many of the beatings, although several investigations were closed due to lack of evidence. In January 2016, however, a court convicted her husband of battery and torture based on a number of Taguhi’s complaints about beatings from February to April 2015. The court sentenced him to six months in prison but immediately released him on a conditional sentence. He served no prison time.

Despite his conviction, he continued to stalk her, especially at her parents’ apartment, forcing his way in, or attacking her near the building’s entrance. From February through July 2016, Taguhi filed at least eight complaints with the police. After an attack near her parents’ apartment in July 2016, Taguhi fled to the police with her mother. The police accepted her written complaint and then drove the women back to the apartment building, but refused to escort them to the door, although Taguhi told them she feared her former husband might be waiting for them.

As she and her mother approached the apartment door, Taguhi’s former husband, who had been hiding nearby, attacked the two women with an axe, killing Taguhi’s mother. Taguhi was hospitalized for six weeks, with numerous injuries, including a nearly severed shoulder, a partially severed ear, and axe wounds to her scalp, hand, arm, neck, chest, abdomen, and back. Her father, who came out of the apartment and tried to intervene, lost two fingers on his left hand. Her son, who was at home with the grandfather, watched the attack from the doorway. Taguhi’s former husband is in pretrial detention facing murder and attempted murder charges.

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Taguhi herself, however, is also facing trial on battery charges for scratching her former husband’s arms and neck with her fingernails in June and early July 2016. She said that she was acting in self-defense and that her artificial fingernails could not have caused injury consistent with battery.

“Zaruhi”

“As soon as I got married, when I was 18, the nightmares started,” said Zaruhi, now 30. “He drank heavily, and so did his parents. All of them would hit me sometimes.” Zaruhi’s husband controlled her, threatening to kill her. He refused to let me go out of the house or even have coffee and socialize with the neighbors, she said. “He threatened me that if I tell anyone about the beatings he would kill me, or if I tried to leave him, he would find me and kill me. I felt like I had no choice but to stay.”

Her husband also raped her and controlled her sexually. “One night he came home drunk and wanted to have sex. I said, ‘I don’t want to, don’t touch me.’ He got very angry and yelled, ‘When I want to, you will sleep with me. Even if you don’t want to, I don’t care! If I want to, you will give it to me.’” Zaruhi said he punched her in the head, knocked her down, and kicked her in the abdomen, and then raped her. “After that, even if I didn’t want to be with him, I agreed. I stayed calm, just so that he wouldn’t beat me,” she said.

Zaruhi said that one day in 2009, her husband beat her when she was about five months pregnant with her third child. She started having vaginal bleeding and went to the hospital, where doctors told her that the fetus had died in the womb.

Despite regular abuse, Zaruhi was afraid to go to the police because of her husband’s death threats and those of her mother-in-law, who said: “If you ever think of going to the police, know that we have friends in the police, and it won’t do you any good.”

After a severe beating in August 2017, Zaruhi divorced her husband and moved in with her parents. He repeatedly came to their house, beat her and threatened to take their four children. She eventually moved and went into hiding. “I just want him to leave me alone,” she said. With the support of a local women’s rights organization, Zaruhi went to the police. She has filed a complaint regarding the beating that caused the death of her baby and has sued for alimony and child support. The investigation is ongoing.

“Astghik”

Astghik, 38, has three children. Her husband has abused her since shortly after they married in 2010. She said:

He grabs me and shakes me. He spits on me. Every day he wounds my soul. He threatens me, often with a knife, and tells my children, ‘I will kill your mother and you will end up in the orphanage.’ He forces me to have sex with him. I don’t want to. I do it with loathing. I do it just so there wouldn’t be another fight.

One time, earlier this year, he shoved a kitchen knife at me, threatening to kill me. I called the police, but when they came, they said, ‘Unless he actually hurts you, we can’t do anything.’

With the help of a lawyer at a nongovernmental organization, she filed an official complaint regarding the death threats. The investigation is ongoing. Although the two are officially divorced and Astghik is entitled to court-ordered child support, she continues to live with her abusive former husband, because he does not, and is not forced to, pay support, without which she has no income and is not able to provide shelter for herself and the children.

Hasmik

Hasmik said that her husband beat her for the first time soon after they married in 2004, and continued to do so regularly throughout  their nine-year marriage, including during her pregnancies in 2006 and 2007. He punched her in the head when she was three months pregnant with their first child, who was born with a hearing disability. Hasmik believes her pregnancy was harmed by the abuse she suffered.

One day in 2013, Hasmik’s husband punched her in the face, broke a glass of water on her head, and beat her with a chair. “He had beaten me so badly that I lost consciousness,” she said. “I could not open my eyes, and when I did, I saw blood everywhere and on the wall.”

Her husband’s family refused to help her go to the hospital. Hasmik was bed-ridden for several weeks. Soon after she recovered, her husband resumed beating her.

After another beating later in 2013 that caused a severe injury to the side of her head, Hasmik ran away and spent the night outside in fear. She was two months pregnant. She went to her parents’ house and soon decided to have an abortion, not wanting to have another baby in her troubled family. While recovering at home, she fainted, and her family called an ambulance. When the medics saw her head injury, they insisted that she notify the police.

Police arrived from the town where Hasmik and her husband lived, but instead of assisting her, they urged her to go back to her husband. Hasmik refused, and with the support of a women’s rights group, moved to a shelter, filed a complaint against her husband for abuse, and petitioned for custody of her children. Hasmik’s former husband threatened her, saying he would never let her see their children again, unless she withdrew her police complaint.

Police failed to respond appropriately or prevent further threats and abuse during the investigation. During one witness confrontation, a procedural step in criminal investigations when the two parties must meet together with the investigator, Hasmik ’s husband shouted at her saying, “I will smash this table on your head!” When the investigator did not respond, Hasmik fled, and filed a complaint. At the next interrogation the investigator said to her, mockingly, “He didn’t actually hit you with the table. Why did you run out of here?”

Her former husband was later charged with torture, including causing physical and psychological suffering, of a person financially dependent on him (Criminal Code article 119). In December 2014, a court convicted him and sentenced him to 18 months in prison, but he was released from the courtroom under a national amnesty for certain crimes, and served no prison time. He did not further harm Hasmik, but in 2015 attacked his parents and police who responded. A trial on charges of using violence against police is ongoing.

Though a court awarded Hasmik custody of her then-6-year-old son in 2013, her husband’s family refused to give the child to her, and the regional division of the Justice Ministry’s enforcement service did not carry out the judgment. Her son finally moved in with her in November 2016 after national authorities intervened. Hasmik’s daughter had lived with her since late 2013 since her husband did not want the child because of her disability.

“Karine”

Karine. 44, filed a complaint against her husband in 2016, after he beat and raped her for many years, but the authorities’ response led her to abandon the process. She said:

I had to forgive my husband and go back to him. Police and municipality officials insisted that I do so, and also withdraw my complaint. They said that it’s a family matter, that my husband was [psychologically] sick, and that it was my duty to help him. Police told me that even if I pursued the complaint, it would not lead to anything, just some fine.

Recommendations

The Armenian government should:

• Ensure the prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation of all domestic violence cases, using methods that mitigate risks for survivors, and prosecute and punish the attackers;
• Systematically train police, judges, and other relevant authorities in domestic violence response, including filing and investigating complaints, in line with international standards;
• Ensure immediate access to protection for survivors of domestic abuse through availability of shelter spaces, including in rural areas, and short- and long-term protection orders;
• Ensure that survivors and their children have access to quality, comprehensive and inclusive medical, psychological, legal, and other services;
• Conduct campaigns to educate the public about the new law, how to file complaints, and the availability of services;
• Ensure that enforcement of the law includes victims in non-marital intimate relationships;
• Swiftly adopt relevant changes to the criminal code to ensure appropriate punishments commensurate with the gravity of the abuse;
• Revise the criminal code to include an aggravating circumstance covering crimes committed within the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the abuser shares or has shared the same residence with the victim, in line with the Istanbul Convention; this approach allows for the use of the generic provisions in the criminal law while imposing a higher sentence in cases of domestic violence;
• Consider addressing domestic violence as a dedicated criminal offense. This can provide an optimal response particularly in cases of abusive patterns of behavior in which isolated acts of violence do not reach the criminal threshold; and
• Ratify the Istanbul Convention without delay. 

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Yesterday, Pakistani news anchor Kiran Naz went on the air with her young daughter to protest on camera the rape and killing of Zainab Ansari, a 7-year-old girl, whose body was dumped in a pile of garbage.

“It is true when they say that the smallest coffins are the heaviest,” Naz said, her daughter sitting on her lap. “And all of Pakistan is burdened by the weight of her coffin.”

Zainab went missing on January 4 and her brutalized corpse was discovered five days later, leading to widespread protests in Pakistan.

The cruel indifference of some crimes can shake a nation. But too often, incidents of child sex abuse remain hidden.

According to the Islamabad-based nongovernmental organization Sahil, an average of 11 cases of child sexual abuse are reported daily across Pakistan. Zainab was among the dozen children to be murdered in Kasur district in Punjab province in the past year. In 2015, police identified a gang of child sex abusers in the same district.

It’s not just Pakistan – sexual violence against girls and women is commonplace in South Asia. In India, the crime that awoke the nation to this cruel reality happened in 2012, when a 23-year-old student, Jyoti Singh Pandey, was gang-raped and left fatally injured on the road. Indians erupted in rage, demanding that the government take action to end sexual violence.

Although much remains to be done, the Indian parliament eventually did respond, unanimously adopting reforms to prosecute sexual violence and initiating new policies. Yet even before the Pandey attack, the Indian government had enacted a law to protect children from sexual abuse.

In 2013, Human Rights Watch published Breaking the Silence, which included detailed recommendations to the Indian authorities on protecting children from sexual abuse. Similar steps are needed in Pakistan. These include believing children who report abuse, ensuring victims receive respectful care from health providers, and making sure police respond in a way that protects victims instead of harming them further.

Child sex abuse is not inevitable. A strong public and government response can mean the difference between life and death for little ones who deserve our protection. The heavy burden of little coffins needs to end. 

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I had already heard many disturbing stories of violence by the time I interviewed Mercy Maina, whose name I have changed to protect her privacy.  Even so, what Mercy told me was truly disturbing. She said she was raped during the post-election violence in August alongside her sister by two men wearing uniforms and helmets, and carrying guns and walkie-talkies.

But, Mercy told me, this was not the first time she had been a victim of post-election sexual violence. She was also raped by two police officers during the 2007-2008 post-election violence, that time with a friend who later committed suicide. Mercy became pregnant from that rape and has a 9-year-old daughter. She said she still suffers from stomach ulcers as a result of the stress of that rape.

Mercy is one of 71 women, girls, and men I interviewed about rape and other sexual violence during Kenya’s 2017 elections. They described brutal cases of vaginal and anal rape, gang rapes involving two or more attackers, mass rape of a group of women, attempted rape, rape with an object, putting dirt into a woman’s private parts, unwanted sexual touching, forced nudity, and beatings on genitals.

Some women were raped in the presence of family members, including children. In at least one case, a girl died after being raped. Most of the attackers, survivors and witnesses told me, were policemen or men in uniform, many of whom  carried guns, batons, teargas canisters, and whips, or wore helmets and other anti-riot gear, and by militia groups.

Many said they experienced profound mental trauma and anguish, they felt hopeless, fearful and anxious, had nightmares about the assault, or suicidal thoughts. Mercy, like many survivors, did not get immediate or comprehensive post-rape medical care or any mental health services. She and her sister didn’t go to a medical facility until two weeks after the rapes because they were afraid to go out in case their attackers came back and because they did not want to tell health workers what had happened. “You cannot trust people,” she told me.

Mercy never reported the sexual assault to the authorities. The reason she gave me captures the lack of trust in the police expressed by many survivors: “I did not go to the police because even in 2007 we were abused by the police and we were told by police you cannot report the government to the government.”

Some of the women we interviewed did try to report sexual violence, but the police sometimes sent them away without taking statements, ridiculed or verbally abused them, or failed to follow up on complaints. Such unprofessional police response also undermines survivors’ ability to seek help from health facilities, and weakens justice efforts.

Members of the Kenyan police and security forces have a long history of committing abuses, including sexual violence, during election periods, but the authorities have largely ignored election-related sexual crimes and the victims’ suffering. Thousands of women and girls are estimated to have been raped during the 2007-2008 political violence, including by state security agents.

Based on our extensive research, the authorities rarely  provided any medical treatment or post-rape counselling, or offered victims any financial support. Almost a decade later, very few cases have been properly investigated or attackers held accountable.

The Kenyan government continues to underestimate and has even denied the abuses committed during the 2017 elections. In December, President Uhuru Kenyatta congratulated the police, for “being professional” and “firm” during the election period, a move that shocked many Kenyans and was quickly criticized by civil society groups and others.

The Kenyan government and other state authorities have an obligation to protect women and girls, men and boys against sexual violence, to punish offenders, and provide reparations to victims. All sexual assault victims should get timely, quality, and confidential post-rape treatment, including psychosocial, or mental health, care for themselves and their families, and communities need to know where victims can get post-rape care, including free treatment.

It is critical for the government to also ensure that credible criminal investigations are conducted into all allegations of election-related sexual violence. It should consider establishing an independent judicial commission of inquiry to examine any unlawful activities of the police, including allegations of sexual violence, with a view to ending impunity and ensuring accountability.

The Inspector General of Police has committed to put in place a taskforce to investigate the involvement of its officers or other men in uniform in sexual violence during the 2017 elections period. If the  task force is to be successful, it will need clear terms of reference and bring together officials from relevant government bodies, health care providers, representatives of women’s and children’s groups and other civil society organizations and experts working on sexual violence.

It should set clear goals of the investigations, ways of reaching out to all victims, effective measures to secure accountability for these crimes, and mechanisms for the protection, treatment, and care of victims.

Sexual violence survivors should not be left suffering and ashamed. It is the Kenyan authorities who should be ashamed at failing to meet their needs or to prosecute their attackers.

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Tjahjanto should immediately ban so-called virginity tests, which are obligatory for female applicants to the Indonesian armed forces. Virginity testing is a form of gender-based violence and has been widely discredited, including by the World Health Organization.

“Indonesian women who seek to serve their country by joining the military shouldn’t have to subject themselves to an abusive and discriminatory ‘virginity test,’” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The Indonesian military cannot effectively protect all Indonesians, women and men, so long as a mindset of discrimination permeates their ranks.”

As armed forces commander, Tjahjanto should also publicly support President Jokowi’s lifting of access and reporting restrictions on foreign media in Papua and ensure that all military personnel in Papua fully respect media freedom.

Tjahjanto should also ensure prompt, transparent, and impartial investigations of abuses – including torture and unlawful killings – in which military personnel are implicated, and take appropriate action against personnel responsible.

Tjahjanto should also fully cooperate with government efforts toward investigating the mass killings of 1965-66, in which 500,000 to one million suspected communists and others were killed. He should make a commitment to release any relevant TNI documents about the killings and halt any intimidationefforts by military personnel of those seeking accountability. Military cooperation is crucial to determining responsibility for these atrocities and to provide justice and redress for the victims and their families.

Tjahjanto should also pledge to reform the military tribunal system to allow civilian courts to prosecute military personnel implicated in rights abuses against civilians. The 2004 Armed Forces Law placed the military courts under the supervision of Indonesia's Supreme Court but the military controls the composition, organization, procedure, and administration of the military courts.

During the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia’s human rights record in 2007, 2012, and 2017, the Indonesian government made a commitment to reform the military tribunal system. The promised reforms included adding to the military criminal code the crimes of torture, and other acts of violence. However, the government has yet to add those offenses to the military criminal code.

“Marshal Tjahjanto should publicly support legal reforms to empower civilian courts to try soldiers implicated in rights abuses,” Adams said. “It’s a crucial step for holding Indonesia’s military accountable.”

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The backlash against #MeToo is gathering steam, with a chorus of voices raising concerns about “overreactions” to “minor” transgressions and citing threats to sexual freedom.

The #MeToo movement has launched a tsunami of discussion and awareness on systemic workplace sexual abuse and harassment, building upon decades of activism by the feminist and labor movements.

The backlash rests on two claims: First, good men may be undeservedly punished for their behavior as fairness and due process are discarded in the rush to appear on the “right side” of sexual harassment. Second, this is removing all the “fun” from male-female interaction.

I find these claims infuriatingly wrong.

The specter of many innocent men being accused of minor sexual harassment, losing their jobs, and being branded as sexual predators is extraordinarily unlikely. And it masks an underlying message that women should in fact put up with having their butts pinched, enduring offensive comments, and even having unwanted sex, all to avoid hurting otherwise all-around good guys. This idea relies on a pernicious stereotype: that women lie about consensual sex so often that society has to invent ways to ensure that innocent men are properly protected.

While it is hard to quantify the rate of false reporting of any crime, research in the US, UK, New Zealand, and Canada put false reporting of rape at approximately eight percent. Human Rights Watch research has found that stigma around sexual violence creates a strong disincentive to complain, confirming other research that shows rape is a vastly under-reported crime. Our research in numerous countries shows how discrediting victims of sexual violence, including workplace sexual harassment, has led to their complaints being ignored, dismissed, or not investigated.

The #MeToo moment is a direct response to a system that has punished victims, rather than the perpetrators, for coming forward. The answer to concerns about fairness and proportionality about penalties, however, is not to discredit victims or undermine their complaints about offensive speech, inappropriate touching, and harassment; instead, it is to ensure that we have fair processes to assess allegations and responses. This means that workplaces must put in place fair and transparent procedures to receive, investigate, and respond to allegations of sexual harassment.

The second argument is particularly infuriating since, yet again, it relies on stereotypes of women (especially feminists) as unable to take a joke or distinguish between a man making a clumsy misjudgment and a predator/serial offender—that we don’t like casual, no-strings-attached sex, harmless flirtations, or a little “fun” by the photocopy machine.

But the #MeToo movement is not about sex. It’s about the implicit system of power in the workplace: who has it, who exercises it, and who suffers due to lack of power. It’s about showing how this power imbalance pushes women out of the workplace, undermines their career progression, and prevents them from competing on an equal basis for jobs, promotions and training. Men have no inherent right to flirt with, kiss, or touch their co-workers. Women (and I assume, many men) generally do not go to work to engage in sexual foreplay, and they certainly don’t go to be harassed, threatened, or victimized.

Fortunately, the #MeToo movement and social media have shone a harsh spotlight on pervasive and depressingly similar sexual harassment in many sectors, and they are also helping to create the space for women to determine how and when sexual encounters happen.

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Duterte said at a press briefing on Friday that he would train the Lumad – the collective name for indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines – to be paramilitaries. “You want money? I'll give you money," he said. “I will make it 20,000 pesos per head.”

Duterte made the statement after the reported killing that week of a Lumad leader in Surigao del Sur province by the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Duterte accused the NPA of victimizing the Lumad, who have long suffered extreme poverty and government neglect that make them attractive for recruitment by the rebels.

Duterte’s offer of a bounty for killing communist rebels, however, encourages war crimes such as shooting enemy fighters who have surrendered or are wounded, or who are civilians protected from attack. This is not the first time the president has made public statements that would encourage laws-of-war violations. The same day, he told soldiers to shoot female rebels in their vaginas, eliciting a public outcry. In July, he threatened to bomb Lumad schools that allegedly harbored rebels. In March, he ordered state forces to “go ahead, flatten the hills” during counter-insurgency operations.

Duterte’s pronouncements normalize the idea that government security forces can do as they wish to defeat their enemies—including committing summary executions and sexual violence. Such rhetoric is especially dangerous because the Philippines has a history of Lumad community members being on both sides of the country’s many internal conflicts, as both fighters and victims. This includes joining paramilitaries and militias during the nearly half-century long Maoist insurgency and equally protracted Islamic separatist movements and local conflicts in the south.

Duterte needs to stop encouraging his troops to commit war crimes and instead promote measures to ensure that those responsible for abuses – including members of rebel groups and militias – are held accountable in accordance with international law. Respecting rights rather than offering bounties is the best way to help the Lumad.

Summary

This submission focuses on the protection of education during armed conflict, sexual violence against women and girls, and the rights of persons with disabilities in humanitarian contexts. It relates to Articles 2, 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Human Rights Watch has conducted extensive field research and documented grave human rights violations in the Central African Republic since 2013.[1] This includes research conducted as the conflict worsened in 2013,[2] and in November 2016 and January 2017 concerning the occupation of schools for military purposes. Further information on this topic can be found in our report, No Class: When Armed Groups Use Schools in the Central African Republic.[3] This submission also contains evidence from research conducted on the subject of sexual violence against women and girls by armed groups between July 2015 and August 2017. Further information can be found in our report, “They Said We Are Their Slaves,” Sexual Violence by Armed Groups in the Central African Republic.[4]

Background

On December 10, 2012, the Seleka, an alliance of predominantly Muslim rebel groups from the marginalized northeast of the Central African Republic, began a military campaign against the government.[5] The Seleka moved southwest into non-Muslim areas, killing thousands of civilians. On March 24, 2013, Seleka rebels took control of Bangui, the capital, and ousted President François Bozizé. Michel Djotodia, a Seleka leader, suspended the constitution, and installed himself as interim president—a role to which he was subsequently appointed by the transitional government.[6] In August 2013, animist and Christian militia known as “anti-balaka,” in an attempt to seize power and retaliate against the Seleka, began to target Muslim residents and committed serious human rights violations.[7] Djotodia dissolved the Seleka in September 2013. The Seleka were pushed out of Bangui and the southwest in early 2014 by African Union and French forces and established strongholds in the center and east. However, by October 2014, the Seleka had fractured into smaller groups, each controlling territory. These groups include the Popular Front for the Renaissance in the Central African Republic (Front Populaire pour la Renaissance de la Centrafrique, FPRC), Central African Patriotic Movement (Mouvement Patriotique pour la Centrafrique, MPC), Patriotic Rally for the Renewal of Central Africa (Rassemblement Patriotic pour la Réconciliation des Centrafricains, RPRC), and Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (l'Union pour la Paix en Centrafrique, UPC). The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed group originally from Uganda, also extended its activities into the Central African Republic from 2008 onwards and has committed human rights abuses.[8] In June and October 2017, numerous armed groups signed ceasefire agreements. The accord commits the parties to end their hostilities and to recognize the election of President Faustin-Archang Touadera in 2016. Much of the country remains insecure, unstable, and beset with serious human rights violations. Armed groups still control key towns, despite the presence of United Nations peacekeepers.[9]

Education (Articles 13, 14)

The Protection of Education During Armed Conflict

Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools

According to United Nations documentation, Human Rights Watch research, and research conducted by other nongovernmental organizations, attacks on students, teachers, and schools by Seleka and anti-balaka took place between 2012 and 2016.[10]

Human Rights Watch documented cases where armed groups attacked schools, students, and teachers, and looted and destroyed school infrastructure and materials, such as books and desks from 2008-2013.[11] In October 2013, Human Rights Watch found that many schools around Bossangoa were abandoned or not operating, or were used by displaced persons for shelter. Schools visited by Human Rights Watch in Ndjo, Zéré, and Ouham-Bac had been systematically looted of essential supplies, such as books, desks, official records, and metal roofs, by Seleka.[12] The United Nations recorded eight attacks on schools and protected personnel by the LRA, MPC, RPRC, the FPRC/MPC coalition, and anti-balaka elements in 2016. This included the killing of three schoolteachers in October by elements of the FPRC/MPC coalition who invaded a school in Kaga-Bandoro and the stabbing of one teacher by ex-Séléka elements in Bamou.[13]

Human Rights Watch found that in July 2016 an anti-balaka fighter beat a teacher who tried to stop him from burning a school desk in the town of Sekia-Dalliet, Lobaye province. “One day an anti- balaka fighter was taking a desk to burn and I had had enough,” the teacher said, explaining that, at the time, anti-balaka fighters had been occupying the school for 22 months. “I ran up and told him to stop. I told him to put down the desk because it was for the kids. He pulled out a knife and hit me in the head. I was taken to the hospital immediately.”[14]

On October 12, 2016, Seleka fighters attacked a school in Kaga-Bandoro, where a teacher training course was being held. Fifteen men entered the school courtyard armed with knives and grenades. They followed those who attempted to flee from the school premises into the surrounding neighborhood, shooting at them directly. They captured one teacher and stabbed him to death. Another teacher, the director of the training center, was killed when the Seleka found him nearby.[15]

The Use of Schools for Military Purposes

The use of schools for military purposes such as barracks, bases, and detention centers during the conflict continues to be of concern, threatening children’s safety and education. According to United Nations documentation, Human Rights Watch research, and research conducted by other nongovernmental organizations, government forces and non-state armed groups, including Seleka and anti-balaka fighters, occupied schools for military purposes between 2012 and 2017.[16]

At least 20 schools were occupied or used by non-state actors and four were occupied or used by military forces, between December 2012 and August 2013 in the Bamingui-Bangoran, Kémo, Ombella-M’Poko, Bangui, Haute-Kotto, Nana-Grébizi, and Ouaka prefectures. Many of these schools reported looting and damage.[17] The UN recorded 36 cases of the military use of schools, most perpetrated by Seleka groups, from late 2012 to February 2016.[18] In 2016, the UN found that 22 schools were used by armed groups that claimed that the facilities were disused. Following the publication of press releases by the UN in September condemning the practice, the MPC and FDPC vacated six schools. The UPC and FRPC vacated three other schools but these were later reused.[19]

In November 2016 and January 2017, Human Rights Watch visited 12 schools in the Lobaye, Nana Grébizi, Nana-Mambéré, Ouaka, Ouham, and Ouham-Pendé provinces that were either occupied by an armed group, had previously been occupied by an armed group, or the group was in the immediate area, preventing students from attending school. Eight of these schools were either occupied or continued to be affected by the occupation of Seleka fighters from the UPC, MPC, or FPRC. Human Rights Watch also found that anti-balaka fighters have also occupied and damaged schools, and that, in two cases, United Nations peacekeepers used a school as a base, in violation of UN regulations. The UN forces left both schools after Human Rights Watch informed UN officials.[20]

Human Rights Watch found that Seleka and anti-balaka fighters had occupied, looted, and damaged school buildings. This was particularly prevalent in the central and eastern provinces where fighting continues. Some schools were operational, but teachers and parents stated that there were frequent closures, which prevented children from attending class.[21] In ten of the twelve schools visited by Human Rights Watch, desks had been burned as firewood. In some instances, reading materials were deliberately destroyed.[22] In December 2016, fighters from the UPC executed 25 people after calling them to a school in the town of Bakala for an alleged meeting.[23] In January 2017, a school official from Sekia-Dalliet, where the primary school was occupied by anti-balaka fighters from late 2014 to October 2016, stated that his school was still suffering the consequences of the occupation. The fighters had destroyed desks and chairs, used the school grounds as their toilet, and used the desks for firewood and destroyed at least 75 of them.[24]

The close proximity of fighters to school grounds also restricts the ability of students to attend class. Sometimes students do not attend school despite the fact the school is operational because parents and children are too scared. In four cases documented by Human Rights Watch in January 2017, fighters were located near the school grounds, and several parents stated they were too afraid to send their children to school because of such proximity. In some cases, parents and families are reluctant for their children to return to school even when armed groups have left.[25] One student, a 15-year-old girl, told Human Rights Watch: “I am scared of the Seleka in front of my school. They look at me with red eyes when I pass. Some of them smoke drugs and it makes me scared. I have not studied since 2013. I have lost years. I want to return to school, but the presence of the Seleka means it is not possible.”[26]

Human Rights Watch welcomes the Central African Republic’s endorsement of the Safe Schools Declaration on July 23, 2015. This was an important step that spurred the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MINUSCA, to begin clearing schools occupied by militias.[27] The government has the primary responsibility to ensure that communities have the resources to repair and rebuild schools that have been damaged due to fighting. This effort will require close collaboration with international partners.

Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask the government:

• What steps has the Central African Republic taken in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2143 (2014) and 2225 (2015) to deter the use of schools for military purposes?
• Are protections for schools from military use included in any policies, rules, or pre-deployment trainings for Central African Republic’s armed forces?
• What steps has Central African Republic taken to implement the commitments in the Safe Schools Declaration?

Human Rights Watch asks the Committee to:

• Congratulate the Central African Republic for having endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration.
• Call upon the government to take concrete measures to deter the military use of schools, including by requesting assistance from the UN peacekeeping mission to oblige armed groups to vacate schools and school grounds.
• Call upon the government to incorporate the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict into domestic military policy and operational frameworks. 
• Ensure that students deprived of educational facilities as a result of conflict are promptly given access to alternative suitable facilities while their own schools are repaired. Request assistance from UN agencies and humanitarian actors in this regard.
• Investigate attacks against students, teachers, and schools, and hold those responsible to account.

Sexual Violence against Women and Girls (Articles 2, 3, 6, 12, 13)

Sexual Violence by Armed Groups

Human Rights Watch has documented pervasive sexual violence against women and girls by armed groups in the Central African Republic, in violation of the Covenant’s principles of non-discrimination and equal rights of men and women.^[28] Human Rights Watch is also concerned about a lack of health and socio-economic services for survivors, which hinders fulfillment of their rights to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to work, and to education.

In interviews with 296 female survivors (257 women and 39 girls) of violence by Seleka and anti-balaka, Human Rights Watch documented 305 cases of rape and sexual slavery that occurred between January 2013 and May 2017.^[29] Survivors interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Bangui, Bambari, Boda, and Kaga-Bandoro described how fighters subjected them to violent and often repeated rape.

In most cases, survivors said that multiple perpetrators raped them—sometimes 10 men or more during a single incident. The rapes of these women and girls constitute torture as does the infliction of additional physical abuse during the rapes resulting in grave injuries such as broken bones and smashed teeth, internal injuries and head trauma. Perpetrators also tortured women and girls by whipping them, tying them up for prolonged periods, burning them, and threatening them with death. Sexual slavery survivors were held captive for up to 18 months, repeatedly raped—some taken as fighters’ “wives”—and forced to cook, clean, and collect food or water.

In many cases, survivors said their attackers used sexual violence as a form of retribution for perceived support of those on the other side of the sectarian divide. Members of armed groups aggravated the humiliation by raping some women and girls in front of their husbands, children, and other family members.

At times, rape formed an integral part of armed assaults and was used as a weapon of war. Members of armed groups committed rape during attacks on towns and villages, sometimes during door-to-door searches for men and boys. Seleka and anti-balaka fighters also attacked women and girls as they carried out essential tasks such as going to markets, cultivating or harvesting crops, and going to and from school or work.

For almost all survivors Human Rights Watch interviewed, sexual violence resulted in long-term consequences, including illness and injury, unwanted pregnancy, stigma and abandonment, and loss of livelihoods or access to education.

Some faced incapacitating physical injury and illness, including HIV and, in one case, a traumatic brain injury. Others became pregnant from rape, and now some also face emotional and financial challenges in raising children resulting from those pregnancies. Mental health consequences are no less dire. Women and girls described symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress and depression, including suicidal thoughts, fear and anxiety, sleeplessness, and an inability to complete daily tasks. Unable to continue work or other activities for sustenance, many said they are struggling to resume their lives and support themselves and their families. Girls sometimes dropped out of school due to fear of repeated violence, risk of stigma, or continued insecurity or displacement.

Significant barriers to accessing health and psychosocial services include risk of stigma and rejection, inaccessibility of and lack of awareness about services, and financial burdens associated with these services deter survivors from seeking care. Only 145 of the 296 sexual violence survivors Human Rights Watch interviewed had accessed any post-rape medical care due to a range of obstacles, such as a lack of medical facilities, cost of travel to such facilities, and fear of stigma and rejection. Largely due to fear of stigma and abandonment, only 83 of these survivors confirmed that they had disclosed the sexual violence to health care providers, thus allowing for comprehensive post-rape health care. In only 66 cases had survivors received any psychosocial support.

When survivors do access services, care is not always comprehensive or sensitive to survivors’ needs.  The government has committed to providing free health services for sexual violence

survivors, but some women and girls said that service providers required payment for tests or treatment. Others said they did not seek health care because they believed it would cost money they did not have, or because they could not pay for transport to services. Lorraine (all survivors’ names have been changed), 30, said she visited Kaga-Bandoro hospital twice about a year after Seleka fighters raped her in April 2015. She told the doctor about the rape: “They didn’t do an HIV test. He told me that to do an HIV test I had to pay 1500 CFA ($2.56).”^[30]

Access to post-rape medical care, including emergency contraception and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent HIV, and access to safe abortion remain inconsistent. Thirteen survivors, including three girls, told Human Rights Watch they became pregnant due to sexual violence by armed groups. Béatrice, 18, told Human Rights Watch that an anti-balaka fighter killed her mother and aunt and then raped her repeatedly around November 2015. Interviewed nearly three months later, she was pregnant from the rapes and wanted an abortion but did not know how to access medical care. “What am I going to do with this baby?” Béatrice asked. “I did not want it. Who will take care of it? My family is all dead and I have a murderer’s baby.”^[31]

In some cases, women said that the inability to continue income-generating activities left them dependent on others to meet their basic needs. “When I was at my house, I did small business—made cakes and so forth,” said Clarice, 20, of her life before six anti-balaka raped her in Bangui in October 2015. “Since the violence, I’m afraid. Now I don’t walk around anymore. It is my aunt who feeds me.”^[32]

Sexual violence also hindered access to education. Patricia, 15, was held and raped by anti-balaka at a base in Bangui in March 2016. The stigma keeps her from returning to school after her grandmother told a classmate’s family about the violence.^[33]

Barriers to justice also remain. A dearth of resources, lack of infrastructure, and inadequate capacity hamper the judicial system, and a history of relative impunity for gender-based violence fosters skepticism about treatment of sexual violence in criminal proceedings. This and other barriers, including the inability to identify perpetrators, poor response from police and other security sector representatives, and lack of financial resources or legal assistance, prevented survivors from reporting cases to authorities or seeking justice.

Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers

Human Rights Watch documented four cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of girls by UN peacekeepers in the eastern city of Bambari.^[34] These cases, which occurred between October and December 2015, included rape, gang rape, and provision of food and money in exchange for sex, all of which violates the UN’s own “zero tolerance” policy on sexual exploitation and abuse. Only one of the survivors had received any medical or psychosocial care prior to speaking with Human Rights Watch.^[35]

Human Rights Watch also documented 16 cases of sexual abuse and exploitation by Ugandan soldiers serving under the African Union’s (AU) Regional Task Force to eliminate the LRA.[36] Thirteen women and three girls described exploitation involving the exchange of sex for food or money, as well as one case of rape, that occurred since 2010 in the southeastern town of Obo, where Ugandan troops were based. Fifteen of the women and girls became pregnant from the exploitation and abuse. Rape; sex in exchange for money, goods, or services; and sex with anyone under 18 by AU military, police, or civilians qualify as sexual exploitation and abuse, and are prohibited by the AU under its “zero-tolerance” policy for sexual exploitation and abuse.[37]

Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask the government:

• What steps are being taken to ensure provision of and access to comprehensive post-rape medical and mental health care for all survivors of sexual violence—including HIV prevention, emergency contraception, and abortion—and to enhance capacity of medical and psychosocial service providers to deliver such care, in line with international standards?
• What measures is the government implementing to strengthen the national judicial system response to sexual violence at all levels and combat impunity for sexual violence by armed groups, and to ensure cooperation and collaboration with the Special Criminal Court towards this end?
• What steps is the government taking or planning to take to help facilitate investigations of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers, and to cooperate with UN and troop-contributing governments in conducting such investigations and implementing measures to increase protection of civilians from both SEA and sexual violence by armed groups?

Human Rights Watch asks the Committee to call upon the government to:

• Ensure availability of free, comprehensive post-rape medical and psychosocial care, including PEP and emergency contraception, for survivors of sexual violence in both urban and rural areas, as well as training of all medical staff in response to sexual violence and referral mechanisms.
• Conduct educational and awareness-raising activities to increase understanding of how, where, and why to access post-rape services in a timely manner, and to address attitudes that contribute to stigma and rejection of sexual violence survivors.
• Take concrete action to end impunity for sexual violence, including by:

• operationalizing the Special Criminal Court and ensuring that the court investigates and prosecutes crimes of sexual violence in conflict;
• re-establishing judicial structures and ensuring that investigative police prosecutors, and judges have the resources, training and capacity necessary to investigate crimes of sexual violence in conflict and to detain and prosecute perpetrators;

• Cooperate with the UN and the AU to ensure timely investigation of peacekeeper abuses and service provision for survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, and to strengthen protection measures to mitigate the risks of sexual violence and SEA.

The Rights of People with Disabilities in Humanitarian Contexts (Articles 11, 12, 13, 14)

There is no data on the numbers and needs of people with disabilities in the Central African Republic.[38]

Human Rights Watch conducted research in camps for internally displaced people in January and April 2015 and found that, once people with disabilities, including children, reach these camps, they often lack equal access to basic services, such as food, health care, and sanitation.[39]

In further research conducted in April 2017, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 30 people with disabilities in five camps in Bambari, Ouaka prefecture, and Kaga-Bandoro, Nana-Grébizi prefecture. All the camps were receiving limited humanitarian assistance, such as tents, food, and medicine. Access to water and sanitation services, such as latrines and showers, is a daily struggle for people with disabilities in the eastern camps. Without ramps, bars, and other support, some people with physical disabilities were forced to crawl on the ground to enter toilets or shower areas, exposing them to health risks because there are not ramps, bars or other support, or because they are too small for a wheelchair.

Food distribution can be sporadic at displacement camps in Bambari and Kaga-Bandoro and people with disabilities, especially those without families, often struggle to obtain supplies in the chaos during disorganized distributions.[40]

Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask the government:

• What steps has the government taken to work with humanitarian agencies and international partners to provide for the medical, psychological, and social needs of people with disabilities and ensure they are fully included in the humanitarian response, both in terms of protection and assistance, on an equal basis with others, and allow them to fully enjoy their rights ?
• Does the government, in cooperation with humanitarian agencies, collect data on people with disabilities and their needs?

Human Rights Watch asks the Committee to call upon the government to:

• Identify, register, and include in any data collection efforts information on people with disabilities and their needs.
• Monitor and report publicly about abuses against persons with disabilities.
• Work with humanitarian agencies and international partners to ensure people with disabilities are fully included in the humanitarian response, both in terms of protection and assistance, on an equal basis with others, and allow them to fully enjoy their rights. This includes providing equal access to basic services such as food and water, health care, assistive devices, housing, sanitation, education, information, and other basic necessities, including by allocating the necessary resources.
• Consult persons with disabilities and include their representative organizations in decision-making. Support local organizations of persons with disabilities.

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This week’s landmark judgement by the UK Supreme Court against the London Metropolitan Police for failing adequately to investigate the John Worboys case may bring some belated relief to women he drugged and raped.

The Court’s unanimous ruling is also a powerful affirmation of the importance of the UK Human Rights Act (HRA). For years, some tabloids and UK politicians have grotesquely misrepresented the Act, describing it as “a charter for terrorists and criminals.” Theresa May has even suggested it should be scrapped. But these claims are false and her proposal would undermine the rights of everyone living in the UK.

The act incorporates into UK domestic law the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), substantially drafted by British lawyers in the early 1950s and championed by Winston Churchill. It imposes duties on public bodies like the NHS, schools, local authorities, and the police, to protect people’s rights when delivering services.

The act has brought countless benefits to ordinary people in the UK, including in some high-profile cases. For example, the HRA played a pivotal role in securing justice for families of the 1989 Hillsborough stadium football disaster, when 96 fans were crushed to death.  Without the Act, South Yorkshire Police’s gross negligence behind the deaths would almost certainly never have been uncovered.

And the HRA has now allowed Worboys’ victims to hold police responsible for their failure to properly investigate when the women first filed complaints. The case against the Metropolitan Police was brought by two rape victims, who reported their attacks back in 2003 and 2007. But their concerns were treated dismissively and no action was taken. Worboys went on to rape and assault women many more times, until he was finally convicted in 2009.  The Met have said that Worboys may have committed up to 100 rapes in London between 2002 and 2008.  

The Supreme Court made clear that the state is obliged to conduct an effective investigation into crimes involving serious violence, no matter who carried them out.

Thanks to the Human Rights Act, the Metropolitan Police will not only have to pay compensation to the two women, but much more importantly, to change the way they respond to violent crimes like rape in the future, treating survivors with greater respect, properly resourcing their investigations, and pursuing perpetrators with greater vigour.

Remember this when you read the next ill-informed attack on the Human Rights Act.

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“Sanctuary.” What does that mean to you?

Probably not a massive camp made of bamboo and tarps with muddy paths, exposed to torrential rains and disease. But for more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees who fled the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing campaign that began last August, these squalid camps in Bangladesh are as close to sanctuary as they can get.

When I traveled to these camps in October I interviewed women and girls who had fled massacres, mass burning of villages, and widespread sexual violence by uniformed soldiers. Brutal gang rapes left survivors with bleeding vaginal tears, infections, and trauma. Rape is a powerful tool of ethnic cleansing: it not only drives terrified victims from their homes but also makes them afraid to return.  “How can I go back?” one survivor asked.

While the international community has provided considerable aid to the Rohingya refugees, there is still a woeful lack of adequate reproductive health care, including an undersized response to widespread sexual violence. The Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises (IAWG), of which Human Rights Watch is a member, released a statement today noting that five months after Rohingya fled, only a “small proportion” of refugees have access to post rape care.

Why? One reason, according to agencies working there, is that the Bangladesh government, whose local health services are stretched to breaking, has been slow to register new nongovernmental agencies that want to begin working. And NGOs that are registered struggle to get new programming approved.

Second, the contraceptives that women want, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives such as injectables or intra-uterine devices, have often been in short supply, according to agencies. Further, the Bangladeshi government restricts long-acting reversible contraceptives, only allowing doctors and other senior medical personnel to administer them to registered women with addresses (which refugees don’t have). And many Rohingya do not know that abortion is legal in Bangladesh, and abortion providers are simply hard to find.

A third reason for insufficient reproductive health care for Rohingya refugees is funding.

Donor countries should continue to fund aid efforts and pay specific attention to basic reproductive rights if they want to provide real sanctuary for Rohingya rape survivors. Bangladesh needs to recognize that treating the Rohingya humanely means shifting from a short-term approach to a long-term one. Women and girls suffering from severe trauma should not be treated as a temporary problem.

Last week, a 14-year-old girl in Paraguay died during childbirth. She became pregnant after she was raped by a 37-year-old man, and she died while doctors performed an emergency cesarean section, trying desperately to save her and her baby, after she’d spent several weeks in the hospital for pregnancy-related complications. “Her body was not ready for a pregnancy,” said the hospital director. The baby survived.

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Abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances in Paraguay. The only exception is when a pregnancy has life-threatening complications. This narrow exception is not enough to protect the lives, health, and dignity of girls and women in the country.

Abortion is illegal in Paraguay for pregnancies that resulted from rape or incest. It is illegal when the pregnancy poses a serious – but not life-threatening – health risk, and when a fetus has no hope of surviving outside the womb.

We don’t know whether the 14-year-old girl who died last week wanted to have an abortion. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is a deeply personal one. She might have chosen to continue the pregnancy even if legal abortion was an option. But at the very least, she, and her family, her faith leader or trusted confidant, and her doctor should have had the chance to discuss – and consider – the risk of continuing the pregnancy and the option to end it.

In 2015, a 10-year-old girl in Paraguay became pregnant after she was raped by her stepfather. Her mother requested permission for the girl to have an abortion, but authorities denied her request. She gave birth at age 11 – an 11-year-old rape survivor forced into motherhood against her wishes. This could have been avoided if the country allowed safe and legal abortion.

International experts have said blocking access to abortion for survivors of rape can amount to torture. Commenting on the situation in Paraguay, the Committee against Torture said the abortion ban means survivors “are constantly reminded of the violation committed against them, which causes serious traumatic stress and carries a risk of long-lasting psychological problems.”

Every day in Paraguay four girls suffer sexual violence, and two girls under age 15 give birth, according to data from the Ministry of Health. I don’t know whether the 14-year-old girl would have chosen not to continue the pregnancy that was forced on her if she had the option to safely and legally end it. But she was never given that choice.And there are hundreds of girls like her, stripped of information and power over their lives and their bodies. These are the brutal and inevitable consequences of Paraguay’s abortion law.

Paraguay should repeal all laws making abortion a crime. But even narrow exceptions would save some lives – permitting doctors, with their patients’ informed consent, to end a pregnancy when it is necessary to protect a woman or girl’s life or health, when a pregnancy results from rape or incest, or when the fetus will not survive. Paraguayan authorities should act now before any more adolescent girls suffer the consequences of the country’s abortion restrictions. 

(New Delhi) – Women and girls with disabilities in India who survive sexual violence face high barriers to access the justice system, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. Five years ago, the government adopted significant legal reforms for sexual violence cases, but serious gaps remain in implementation. 

“Since 2013, India has made important legal reforms on sexual violence, but women and girls with disabilities still lack equal access to justice,” said Nidhi Goyal, a disability rights activist and co-author of the report. “Indian women and girls with disabilities should no longer remain the invisible victims of sexual violence.”

The 61-page report, “Invisible Victims of Sexual Violence: Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities in India,” details the challenges many women and girls with disabilities face throughout the justice process: reporting abuse to the police, obtaining appropriate medical care, having complaints investigated, navigating the court system, and getting adequate compensation.

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Human Rights Watch investigated 17 cases of rape and gang rape from eight states in India (Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal). These include eight girls and nine women living with a spectrum of disabilities, including physical, sensory, intellectual, and psychosocial disability. Altogether 111 people were interviewed, including sexual violence survivors, family members, lawyers, officials from mental health institutions and shelter facilities, police, government officials, disability rights activists, and “special educators.”

In a November 2017 report on barriers to justice and support services for sexual assault survivors in India, Human Rights Watch found that women and girls who survive rape and other sexual violence often suffer humiliation at police stations and hospitals. Police are frequently unwilling to register their complaints, victims and witnesses receive little protection, and medical professionals still conduct degrading “two-finger” tests. These obstacles to justice and dignity are compounded by inadequate health care, counselling, and legal support for victims during criminal trials.

For Indian women and girls with disabilities, who face a higher risk of sexual violence, the challenges are even greater. Women with physical disabilities may find it more difficult to escape from violent situations. Those who are deaf may not be able to call for help or easily communicate abuse. Women and girls with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities may not know that non-consensual sexual acts are a crime and should be reported. Stigma related to their sexuality and disability compounds these challenges.

“Kanchana,” a 19-year-old woman with an intellectual disability from a village in West Bengal, was raped several times in 2013 by a local man. Kanchana was not aware that she should report being raped, which was only discovered when she was five-months’ pregnant. And her intellectual disability made it difficult to explain to the police what had happened.

April 3, 2018Report

Invisible Victims of Sexual Violence

Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities in India

• Download the full report in English
• Download the letter to the Health Minister (February 2018)
• Download the letter to the Home Minister (February 2018)
• Download the letter to the WCD Minister (February 2018)
• Download the Summary and Recommendations in Hindi
• Download the easy-to-read version of the report in English
• Download the easy-to-read version of the report in Hindi

India’s criminal justice system has largely failed to implement the 2013 amendments, such as providing police and judicial trainings to create an enabling, supportive environment for survivors with disabilities. Some states have adopted good practices, but they are exceptions, not the norm.

To improve interaction with the police and the judicial process, women and girls with disabilities may need procedural and age-appropriate accommodations, and other support depending on their disabilities. This could include access to sign-language interpretation, the presence of someone to facilitate communication (a “special educator”), use of simple language, and the option to file reports in braille.

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India’s leadership has repeatedly expressed concern over sexual violence and has said it is committed to reforms. In 2007, India ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In December 2016, the Parliament adopted the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, which aims to protect all persons with disabilities from abuse, violence, and exploitation, and articulates specific measures to be taken by appropriate government officials, executive magistrates and the police.

“India has taken important steps to reform the criminal justice system to include women and girls with disabilities, but our new research shows the need for action and implementation,” Goyal said. “The government should act promptly to ensure accommodations and other measures so that women and girls with disabilities are out of the shadows of justice.”

Key provisions of the Criminal Law Amendments, 2013 aimed at enabling the participation of women and girls with disabilities in the criminal justice process include:

• The right to record their statement with police in the safety of their home or a place of their choice;
• The right to have their police statements videotaped;
• The right to assistance by a “special educator” or interpreter when the complaint is recorded and during trial; and
• Exemption from having to repeat their videotaped statement at trial, subject to cross-examination.

Quotes from Rape Survivors and Their Families

“The police asked me very nasty things like how it felt for me. I told them I was totally unconscious, so how would I know? The police said things like, ‘She’s mental, why should I pay attention to her?’”
– “Susmita,” 26, a woman with a psychosocial disability from Kolkata, West Bengal, who reported being sedated and raped by four male neighbors in February 2014

“One day, my teacher was finishing some work on the sewing machine in the veranda and asked me to wait inside the house. I was alone inside and that was when her brother forced himself on me. I did not know that if someone raped me, I could go to the police.”
– “Nafisa,” 19, a woman with difficulties hearing and speaking, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, who reported rape in September 2016

“We told the police she has a mental disability and she is physically handicapped… You can see her disability but it was still not recorded in the FIR.”
– “Kanika,” sister of “Maneka”, a 15-year-old girl with intellectual and physical disabilities, who reported being raped by two men from her Delhi neighborhood in October 2015

Quotes From Partners

“Due to high illiteracy levels, most women with disabilities have no source of income and are dependent on their families. This makes them easy targets for violence, often by the very people whom they rely on most. In this context, it’s clear why few women with disabilities report sexual violence.”
– Asha Hans, vice president of Shanta Memorial Rehabilitation Centre

“For a constituency that is more at risk of sexual abuse than their peers, women with disabilities are seriously disadvantaged by the criminal justice system. A lot of the focus of advocacy has been more stringent punishments, but none of that makes any sense if women with disabilities cannot participate in proceedings and ensure convictions of perpetrators.”
– Amba Salekar, director of programs at Equals – Centre for Promotion of Social Justice