Sexual violence ignored in Côte d'Ivoire

In an effort to overcome the current political stalemate, in January government representatives and members of the armed opposition group, the New Forces, agreed to resume direct talks. However, impunity for rape and sexual violence committed by all parties to the ongoing armed conflict remained firmly off the agenda.

Since the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire began in 2002, thousands of women and girls have become victims of widespread – sometimes systematic – rape and sexual assault committed by combatant forces or their civilian allies. Many women have been sexually tortured, gang-raped or abducted and reduced to sexual slavery by combatants. Many have been raped in public, in front of children or next to the corpses of family members. Yet no one has been held accountable for these acts – acts which, perpetrated in the context of an armed conflict, amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

AI spoke to numerous survivors of rape and sexual violence during its latest visits to the country in 2005 and 2006. Their accounts reveal how women were abducted and kept as “property” and specifically targeted for abuse as a result of their ethnic or political affiliations.

Fatou, a Malian woman, told AI how she was detained by a government soldier at a checkpoint in May 2005. “When he discovered I was Malian, he began assaulting me,” she said. The soldier took her somewhere else and “threw me on the floor and raped me... Then he told me to get in the car and, while we were driving, he told me to fellate him and hit me until I did. Then he pulled me out of the car, stripped me and sodomized me.” The soldier later let her go. Fatou registered a complaint at a police station. To AI’s knowledge, no investigation into this complaint has been carried out.

Once raped, most women have little recourse to health care or counselling support services. Many continue to suffer acute physical and mental distress. One 35-year-old woman, who had been raped by members of an armed opposition group in 2002, told AI: “I’m sore all over, particularly the womb and vagina. My periods last two weeks. I suffer a lot from memory loss.” Many women have also been infected with HIV/AIDS as a result of being raped by combatant forces. Some have died.

In 2004, the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) was deployed with a mandate to protect human rights in the country “with special attention to violence committed against women and girls.” However, despite the presence of UNOCI, a climate of impunity has prevailed.

AI calls on the Ivorian government, currently controlling the south of Côte d’Ivoire, and on the New Forces which are controlling the north, to prevent, punish and eradicate sexual violence committed by their forces and supporters. Impunity for these crimes has flourished for more than six years while the world has looked the other way. It is time for everyone, including the international community, to open their eyes and ensure that justice is finally done.

http://web.amnesty.org/wire/March2007/RCI