“Hints” of Sexual Violence: What the Akayesu Trial Archive at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Tells Us About Uncovering Sexual Violence Testimony in Conflict Archives

Abstract The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda Akayesu trial, which led to the precedent-setting conviction for rape as a constituent act of genocide, offers guidance for scholars uncovering “hints” of sexual violence in armed conflict (SVAC) in legal archives. This includes consideration of: the strategic importance of SVAC testimony within the overall archive, indictment or mandate of a proceeding; euphemisms related to SVAC and how they intersect with societal attitudes toward SVAC and its victims; question framing, follow-ups, and interventions by judges or other stakeholders. Review of SVAC evidence should be attentive to the following indicators of potentially more widespread sexual atrocities: recurring acts of SVAC committed across official, public, and private spaces; the absence of areas of refuge; acts of public sexual violence, including those that have a performative dimension; occurrence of SVAC in the context of pervasive physical insecurity and fear for survival within a climate of impunity for the perpetrators; commission of SVAC as part of a sequence of crimes leading up to, and including, the death of the victim; targeting of SVAC victims based on their ethnicity or identity; experience of SVAC within a maelstrom of ethnically or identity-based violence; and the existence of supplementary sources documenting SVAC that are external to the trial record.