Description
This chapter examines delineations of ‘perpetratorhood’ in efforts to fight impunity for sexual violence in conflict. Over the last decade, responding to sexual violence in conflict has become an established priority in international peace and security policy; fighting impunity through local courts and transitional justice mechanisms is deemed central to delivering justice for survivors and deterring future perpetrators from committing similar crimes. The adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1820 (2008) – establishing sexual violence as a threat to international peace and security – marked a clear turning point in this regard. While pervasive across armed conflicts, testimonies of sexual violence documented in eastern DRC were an important impetus for and focus of such developments. Indeed, the experiences of Congolese women and girls at the hands of ‘armed men in uniform’ became quint-essentialised – that is, defining of the (perceived) nature of the harm, its victims and its perpetrators. Given the myriad forms of sexual violence committed in conflict, however, who the victims and perpetrators of sexual violence are in such settings is far from inevitable.
Focusing on the ‘male perpetrator,’ this paper critically examines gendered and raced imaginaries in international peace and security policy and their situational implications in legal practice in eastern DRC. Drawing on extensive research conducted at the UN headquarters in New York, the first part of the chapter traces deliberations leading up to the adoption of key UN Security Council resolutions addressing sexual violence in conflict. Illuminating the micro-politics behind the macro-policies, the author foregrounds the role of institutional imperatives and political dynamics in defining the gendered and raced parameters of conflict-related sexual violence – and perpertratorhood specifically – for the purposes of the Council. Subsequently, and drawing on data collected with judicial actors in eastern DRC, the chapter offers a close appraisal of efforts of fight impunity for sexual violence through local courts in practice. Doing so, it underscores how, and with what effect, clearly delineated policy definitions obscure more complex realities of operationalising justice for sexual violence in practice.
