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University of NSW refugee research centre director, Eileen Pittaway, told the launch there had been more silence than ever before on the issue of female torture in recent years.
Ms Pittaway has been involved in human rights activism for many years and has been witness, in particular, to female victims of rape and sexual torture.
She commented that the Amnesty International report
was important and timely as very few publications were available on the subject.
“For Amnesty to bring out this publication which details so graphically some of the unspeakable things that happen to women
across the world I think is brave,” she said.
Ms Pittaway explained that one of the biggest problems facing human rights workers was deciding whether or not to tell people about the horrific crimes they
confronted.
“Time and time again we hear stories, stories that are almost beyond belief in their horror. Atrocities that you can hardly talk about,” she said.
“This is a real trap and a real problem
for us as human rights workers, because if the stories aren’t told, people don’t know them. If people don’t know them we’re not going to act on them.
“But so often middle class sensibility says ‘Oh you can’t
talk about that!’ You can’t talk about sex and mutilation, you can’t talk about … genital mutilation of the most horrible kind, you can’t talk about cruelty that’s almost beyond belief.
“But you have to
believe it because you’re talking to the people who’ve experienced it and they’re telling you, and they’re talking to human rights workers whose lives are threatened because they try and uncover these abuses. So
what do we do? How do we make the world listen and realise that it’s just not on?”
The recent conviction of three Bosnian Serbs for rape and sexual enslavement highlights the need for an effective
international system of truth and justice for those women who have endured the gravest forms of human rights violations.
Ms Pittaway spoke of the necessity of establishing an International Criminal Court to
bring the perpetrators of human rights abuses against women to justice.
She said women in situations of torture and trauma wanted the world to recognise what had happened to them and to acknowledge that it
wasn’t right, and for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.
“This is part of healing – the acknowledgement that this happens … to my sisters everywhere and that we have to do something about it ... If the
International Criminal Court is established, and it will be … there will be a permanent place where (war) crimes can be tried. There will be a much easier process for these sorts of criminals to be brought to
justice.
“That is why it is so important to have the International Criminal Court because it will address impunity. These crimes happen because people know that it’s very likely nothing will happen to them.
There are no messages in the world saying that it’s not OK,” Ms Pittaway said.
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