Transitional justice processes including tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions require the involvement of women, children and youth as these are the ones that suffer the hardest consequences during armed conflicts, and are also usually the persons the least listened to in many societies.

To give victims and victims’ families a voice, and not merely silently burying or ending up ignoring their actual experiences, should be one of the main priorities for any transitional justice process. Issues such as discrimination, exclusion, weak legal and social protection, marginalization, land distribution, legal ownership, poverty, legal, social and economic exclusion are all very much linked to the concept of justice, and therefore the most marginalized and victimized of a society need to be heard and listened to in any relevant transitional justice process. For people to be able to come forward before a court, tribunal and/or a truth and reconciliation commission, security or lack of security are some of the most important issues, and to provide for protection of witnesses is a major challenge in both on-going conflict and post-conflict situations. At the same time without witnesses and victims coming forward there will be no trials or useful hearings or relevant conclusions to be made. Accountability for crimes committed also includes addressing issues of eventual criminal accountability of children and youth, even as there is a consensus that it would not be appropriate to make children under the age of 18 years criminally accountable for crimes committed during an armed conflict.

A country does not only constitute a government and various armed groups, where traditionally in international peace making while obviously the primary goal should be to get the warring parties to stop the violence, these different armed actors who are the main responsible for the killings and rapes and other violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are the ones negotiating for peace while adult women are excluded from such processes. These different armed actors as is so well known usually end up forming the governments who should be responsible for developing their countries and ensuring the human rights of its population, without ever having shown such capabilities before. Issues such as responsibility for what kinds of governmental structures and/or actors a party (includes international actors) is supporting are really never brought up, as responsibility and accountability for who one supports and for what is actually being established are never considered. This kind of approach might have unintended negative consequences (such as further polarization) also given the fact that for instance adult women are excluded from participating in peace negotiations where the establishment of governmental structures so often are included. The concepts of power, political leadership and political participation in these kinds of contexts are often very narrowly defined by both national and international actors.

LINKS & REFERENCES

Colombia’s National Centre for Historical Memory/ Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica: http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co

Declaración de Humberto de la Calle, Jefe de la Delegación del Gobierno en la Mesa de Conversaciones, of August 23, 2013: http://wsp.presidencia.gov.co

BBC News Latin America and the Caribbean: Questions and Answers: Colombia Peace Talks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19875363

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru, the Final Report: http://www.cverdad.org.pe

The Special Court for Sierra Leone: http://www.sc-sl.org

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone, the Final Report: http://www.sierraleonetrc.org

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, the Final Report: http://trcofliberia.org