Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 17th, 2012

[Kristin Kalla]

Thank you. It's an important question.

There are three ways the situation can be referred to the ICC.

The first way is that the state party itself can refer a case because they have concerns of their own capacity to be able to carry out investigations, and also to try. In the context of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, those governments referred their cases to the ICC.

The second way a situation can be referred is that the Security Council can refer it. In the context of Darfur, of course, this was referred by the Security Council, and Libya as well.

The third way a case can be referred is that the prosecutor can decide to initiate the proprio motu powers of the prosecutor and decide there is cause to open up an investigation. In the context of the post-election violence in Kenya, this is what the prosecutor did. Then the judges will have to decide whether a situation should be formally opened.

So these are the three ways only.

Now what's happened is dossiers have been forwarded to the prosecutor. There have been dossiers forwarded, for example, against the Vatican for mass atrocities and sexual violence that have occurred. A dossier was submitted, I believe, a year and a half ago to the prosecutor. Also the Palestine Authority submitted a dossier, for example, on the Gaza situation. It's up to the prosecutor to review these dossiers and decide whether there are jurisdictional issues.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

The role of the state remains quite important. Do you believe that the international pressure on the Government of Congo is strong enough for them to arrest Bosco Ntaganda and refer him to the International Criminal Court? Do you believe that the international community is playing its role properly, or are there significant measures that remain to be taken in this regard?

[Kristin Kalla]

I think it's always good to have pressure and partnerships with the government on these kinds of issues. Beyond that, it would be difficult for me to comment on Bosco.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Many of those who testified here said that one of the major problems in the Democratic Republic of the Congo concerns the accountability of the people who carry out these rapes. We were told that in general, army officers and policemen did not bring these people to justice because the judge of the court may have a rank that would be lower than theirs. In short, there are problems of accountability. Could you tell us a little bit more about how this plays out on the ground?

[Kristin Kalla]

We have heard concerns from victim survivors in eastern Congo about the capacity of the Congolese judiciary processes. I think again this speaks to what I was saying earlier about the need to strengthen capacity of the justice sector in Congo. This is where I think it's very important for the international community to partner with the Congolese government. Let's hope that with this new government in office, there will be an openness to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have 30 seconds remaining.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

All right.

In your presentation, you mainly emphasized the role that the community plays in the reintegration of women through programs intended to fight against the stereotypes of women who have been raped, etc. This is something we have not often heard about.

With the funding that you receive, do you believe that there are still efforts to be made in terms of the psychological follow-up of victims and the work being done with society in general? This is also a problem within the community, and not simply one that concerns the women who have been victims of violence.

[Kristin Kalla]

That's a very important question, and one that we find is quite challenging in the context of DRC. It's very difficult to find local capacity to deliver specific trauma-based counselling in the way that especially these types of victims need. So we're finding that we're actually using our resources to help build local capacity to do so, and also to deliver that type of counselling. But I think this is where we really need more support to be able to scale up this kind of initiative.

In northern Uganda we've been able to benefit more from a stronger infrastructure in terms of health care, so more capacity existed there, but in the context of Congo this is very difficult. Northern Uganda is post-conflict, so time has passed and we are really in reconstruction. In Congo we're operating in a situation that is quite insecure with ongoing conflict. So even if we do build capacity, it's challenging for us to ensure that it's staying where it should be staying with regard to where these survivors live. That is a big challenge for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sweet, we'll come back to you very briefly.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

This is in regard to one of the answers Ms. Kalla gave. We are a substantial way through a study on Eritrea, and you had mentioned training UN peacekeepers in Eritrea. I just wanted to check. They were expelled in 2005, so is that outdated, or is there some new presence of UN peacekeepers there?

[Kristin Kalla]

No. I was working for UNICEF in Ethiopia in 2000-2001, so this would have been the time we were training the peacekeepers.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

I actually have a couple of questions I want to ask, if I may.

It seems to me that although we've been studying the use of rape and sexual violence in conditions of combat or, as we've put it, as a weapon of war, there are actually two discrete things going on as part of the conflict there, suggesting that possibly they have to be dealt with differently, although I don't know that. The first one is the use of women as sexual tools or sex slaves, for the purpose, I assume, of gratification of the troops.

The second is the violation of women on command. You mentioned it was by family members in many cases, in a sort of mockery of sexuality, presumably with the purpose of destroying not merely that woman's standing in the community but also the family bonds and the man's status in the community as well. The question I have really is, if you had to measure how much there is one problem out there versus the other, how many instances would there be? I'd be interested in your response to that.

Secondly, to what degree are the policy responses that are required the same or different?

[Kristin Kalla]

You just described it very well in terms of the impact on women and girls. I would also add that men and boys are also impacted by sexual violence in the context of DRC in similar ways, but obviously the way it's carried out is a bit different in terms of the public humiliation, especially for the men in the community who happened to be raped en masse in front of their families and communities.

We're working with both types and other forms of sexual violence and enslavement. We're not very involved in taking testimony, for example, from survivors. I think we're sensitive to that, obviously, because we're part of the International Criminal Court. I think oftentimes survivors are a bit nervous about actually sharing their stories because they fear they might be used, for example, for the prosecutor's case, which is not the case for the trust fund. We're just making sure that through our partners we are providing the necessary resources to deal with whatever the harm suffered was.

I don't necessarily have an answer for you in terms of the policy ramifications. Again I think it speaks more to the issue of the Congolese government ensuring that they have policies in place and national frameworks in place to be able to address sexual violence in general, and feeling more comfortable to talk about this issue in a variety of fora, as well as providing the leadership to be able to support this kind of intervention. We haven't seen that so much from the Congolese, and we're hoping that there will be change around that issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

The other question I had was actually suggested to me by our analyst Melissa Radford. I just want to make sure I get this right. Melissa, please correct me if I misunderstand it.

She's asked me to inquire as to whether you knew if victims of sexual violence in the DRC were aware that Lubanga had not been charged with crimes of sexual violence?

[Kristin Kalla]

I don't know how widely that is known in the situation. Obviously quite a few civil society organizations have been addressing this issue and have certainly also filed briefs on the issue. Women's Initiatives For Gender Justice, which is an international organization based in The Hague, represents thousands of grassroots women. They actually filed on this specific issue.

Without talking about the prosecutorial strategy around the Lubanga case, I will say that we submitted our filing several weeks ago on the Lubanga case. We said that perhaps the judges could think about broader definitions under a reparations order. If indeed we're using the resources of the trust fund for victims to complement a court order, and it's a collective order in nature, you could perhaps include other types of harm suffered by the victims in this case to include sexual violence on a reparations order. We'll have to see. It's pending. We don't have a decision yet from chamber. We'll have to see how “reparations” is defined.

It's a very good question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our members, especially for agreeing to stay late. Our members have to rush off to the House of Commons, because question period begins more or less right now.

I thank Ms. Kalla, in particular, for coming this distance and making herself available to us. This was very informative, indeed. Thank you.

We are adjourned.