There Will Be No Justice Unless Women Are Part of That Justice: Rape in Bosnia, the ICTY and Gender Sensitive Prosecution
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THERE WILL BE NO JUSTICE UNLESS WOMEN ARE
PART OF THAT JUSTICE': RAPE IN BOSNIA, THE
ICTY AND GENDER SENSITIVE PROSECUTION
Anne M. Hoefgen2
In the spring of 1992, everything changed. The terror began in
April when soldiers entered the city and separated the members of
her family. Her father and brothers were arrested and she and her
mother were forced into detention at a local sports arena. In July her
fear turned into horror when soldiers dragged her away from her
mother. Her captors interrogated her, a gun was held to her head,
and she was accused of lying. Shortly thereafter she was raped for the
first time. For the following eight months she was enslaved, raped,
and treated as property. She was only fifteen years old. Now she is
Witness 87.3 Witness 87 is one of the tens of thousands of rape victims
from the war in Bosnia between 1991 and 1995. The story of Witness
87 diverges from the stories of past victims of wartime rape because,
for the first time in history, the international community is stepping
forward to aggressively punish rapists as war criminals.
More than fifty years ago, at the post-World War II trials in Nu-
remberg and Tokyo, the international community successfully pun-
ished individuals for war crimes. Never before had individuals been
held accountable by the international community for criminal acts
committed during war. The most meaningful developments in the
international approach to individual responsibility for human rights
violations since World War II have occurred in the 1990s.4 One signif-
1. Judge Elizabeth Odio-Benito in GALIUNG THE GHOSTS (Women Make Movies
1996).
2. University of Wisconsin-Madison, J.D. anticipated May 2000.
3. See CALn NG THE GHosTS, supra note 1. Witness 87 is named FWS-87 in an
indictment issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
See International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Prosecutor of the
Tribunal Against Gagovic and Others (June 26, 1996) <http://www.un.org/icty/indict
ment/english/gagovic.htm> [hereinafter Indictment of Foca 8]. The indictment and
the corresponding trials that encompass the terrorization of Witness 87 are commonly
known as the Foca 8.
4. One example is the adopting in 1998 of a treaty to establish the International
Criminal Court (ICC), a permanent criminal court of international jurisdiction for
trying individual defendants. See Despite Fierce Foe, New World Court Could Succeed, STAR
TRm. (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Aug. 13, 1998, at 18A [hereinafter Despite Fierce Foe]. The
treaty for the ICC provides jurisdiction over several categories of crimes, ranging](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/wiswo14&div=12&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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There Will Be No Justice Unless Women Are Part of That Justice: Rape in Bosnia, the ICTY and Gender Sensitive Prosecution
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