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Thursday : Session D :
Women and Human Rights (2)
Céline Artal
The Alarming Impact of Globalization on Women and Children in Southeast
Asia. Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation.
Human trafficking of women and children in South East Asia for sexual
exploitation is an alarming reality that has raised concern among human
rights activists, NGOs, and IGOs such as the United Nations. Recent economic,
political and social transitions toward trade liberalization and financial
deregulation have been accompanied by dramatic increases in sex trafficking
at both national and international levels. This phenomenon is perhaps
best reflected in Southeast Asia, where an unprecedented magnitude of
activity along sex trafficking routes has been concurrent to the opening
of the region’s national economies. The human rights abuses inherent
to this phenomenon illustrate perfectly one of globalization’s many
unintended effects; namely, the benefiting of scattered trafficking networks
amidst questionable sovereign commitments to the unalienable rights of
their nationals. It is true that most of the Southeast Asian governments
have echoed these concerns at an international, subregional and national
level, but reality shows that women and children of the region are still
underrepresented before the law and suffer from severe and traumatic abuses.
The challenge thus remains to empower these victims of their human rights
and to add a more humane dimension to the current global economic order.
Céline Artal
Dianne Rokvic and Jill Duncan
Viiolence Against Women, Women Against Violence:
human rights re-activating feminist practice.
The feminist philosophy, practice and language of CASA House (Centre Against
Sexual Assault) activate a rights/advocacy model for victim/survivors
of sexual assault. Basic to all aspects of the work of the agency is the
acknowledgement that sexual assault is a violation of human rights and
is a crime against the individual and society. Fundamental to service
delivery is a victim/survivor’s right to information, support and
advocacy: information about their rights and the services and options
available to them, support in making informed decisions and advocacy in
implementing their decisions.
Since its inception in 1987 the experiences and needs of victim survivors
of sexual assault, as articulated by them, have informed the scope and
direction of services provided by the agency. As well this knowledge has
directed efforts in working towards the prevention and elimination of
sexual assault and all forms of violence against women. Further, since
the mid 1990s the evidence of absence of some groups from support services
against violence has challenged the agency to implement changes so that
appropriate services are available for all victim/survivors.
This paper draws on four recent projects conducted by CASA House. The
Right to Party Project was initially motivated by a steadily increasing
incidence of young women experiencing drug and alcohol facilitated sexual
assault. The Indigenous Awareness Project, the CASA House and Islamic
Women’s Collaborative Project and the Older Women’s Project
on the other hand were each activated in response to an absence of representation
of those groups within the agency. In turn the outcomes of the projects
have stimulated the evolution and transformation of agency practice.
The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how the public advocacy and
direct service components of the agency’s work activate and re activate
each other in the service of victim/survivors of sexual assault and the
campaign to eliminate violence against women. There remain challenges
aplenty.
Dianne Rokvic (counsellor/advocate) and
Jill Duncan (project worker),
CASA House, Carlton, Victoria, Australia
Nicola Henry
Secrecy, Silence and Sexual Violence in International Criminal Proceedings
Sexual atrocities during World War II occurred on a massive scale,
yet neither the Nuremberg or Tokyo tribunals examined victim testimonies
of rape and sexual assault, nor was sexual slavery of “comfort women”
addressed. This effectively denied justice and agency to all survivors
of sexual violence, and represents a cultural and historical tragedy.
The silence surrounding such flagrant sexual atrocities had the effect
of transferring humiliation and shame onto the survivor, instead of on
the perpetrator where it rightfully belonged.
This textual absence can be starkly contrasted with attempts at gender
integration and the groundbreaking examination and conviction of sexual
crimes within both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
For the first time in history, the documentation of war crimes against
women and the collection of narratives have surfaced through the presence
of victims within the international legal realm. The provision of space,
voice and platform for sexual violence survivors symbolises an unprecedented
progression within international jurisprudence, and has supposedly “broken
the silence” on this issue. However, despite this momentum, sexual
assault continues to be shrouded in secrecy. This paper will examine historical
and contemporary events; namely it will explore the absence of representation
and the silence surrounding sexual violence survivors within a historical
context, and then compare and contrast the current efforts of contemporary
international war crimes trials.
Nicola Henry, Department
of Criminology, The University of Melbourne
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