Considering that rape used as a tactic of war is spreading in conflicts and risks becoming commonplace, knowing no frontiers, whether geographical ,cultural or religious, nor any linked to age or sex, the Observatory seeks to ensure that this practice is extracted from the sole spheres of intimacy, femininity, and the shame affectioning individuals or family, and is dealt with in the appropriate sphere : that of the public eye, political and military doctrine, economic interests and the deliberate will to decimate entire communities.

The Observatory was set up on the initiative of SC –CF in december 2005 for the purpose of furthering a global vision of the causes and reality of rape as a tactic of war and to take appropriate action as a consequence.

The Observatory acts independently of any political or religious considerations. Its action is founded on texts of International law relating to human rights, which consider rape as a tactic of war as a constitutive act of crime against humanity and war crime as well as an instrument to genocide.

Based in Paris, the Observatory consists of a network of international and local NGOs in various countries, as well as research workers and university scholars who, by signing the Observatory’s chart, pledge to participate in its work, in line with their respective skills and possibilities.

The members of the Observatory will meet three times a year in Paris. Members residing abroad will be associated with its work by ad hoc systems (eg conferences by telephone or video).

For the moment, no specific legal personality is envisaged for the Observatory. The SC/CF will ensure its secretariat and will seek support from international networks.

The Observatory will dispose of a Bureau, limited to 4 or 5 persons, who will see to the maintaining of Advocacy orientation, deciding on actions to be undertaken and resources to be allotted, information to be circulated, the validation of candidacies of NGO's or experts wishing to join the Observatory.

Concretely, the Observatory

- collects and analyses data relating to rape as a tactic in war (including, for instance, declarations made by political or religious leaders, articles in the press), synthesising and circulating them. This will facilitate a broader view of the problem in relation to the initiatives taken, often on the spot, to alert public opinion ;
- carries out research in specific areas : maps, forewarning signals, opinion polls and inquiries…
- facilitates the involvement of locally implanted organisations ;
- invents tools to further Advocacy actions (such as the Manifesto), encourage their use and evaluate their progress ;
- make known its work and interventions in specific areas, especially towards advocacy targets and media

It is foreseen that the Observatory will dispose of a site or portal on the Internet.

How will the Observatory function ?

Its action will be based on the mobilisation of an Advocacy network in countries where rape as a tactic in war is practiced or risks to be practised, and on media reports on the subject.

In order to facilitate the achievement of its objectives, the Observatory will organise a monitoring system to function in each region of the globe : Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania, Middle-East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and North America.

This system will concern both the contents of national legislation and, where appropriate, ongoing court cases in which rape as a tactic in war features among the charges brought, the declarations of parties reported in the local media or in other places where public opinion can be expressed, or action taken in the region in favour of the victims…

Advocacy action, per se, which are undertaken in different countries or regions will be accompanied or followed up directly by the Bureau or the Secretariat. The Secretariat will also initiate campaigns to inform the public and, if need be, elaborate the contents of training courses in the specific Advocacy methods to be developed for a problem as complex as that of the use of rape as a tactic in war.

What will the first Advocacy action to be launched by the Observatory be ?

The initial Advocacy action will have as its support the « Manifesto against rape as a tactic of war ». The targets of the initiative are the decision-makers in the political, military and economic fields, religious, administrative and local authorities or leaders who will be invited in the various regions and countries, as well as in relevant international organisms, to sign the Manifesto and to undertake, within the orbit of their functions, to carry out a specific task linked to the denunciation of this practice and to the search for solutions to bring an end to it.

The Manifesto is also a tool for mobilising the media and all those in civil society, men and women, who wish to see an end to this scourge.

The Manifesto : modus operandi [download the manifesto]

- set up a network of local associations and university scholars or teachers (including both men and women) involved in the legal, medical and psycho-sociological fields ;
- identify the persons or targets to be mobilised : corporations or other legal entities, leaders in the political, administrative and military spheres ;
- define a few specific actions to be proposed to the future signatories ;
- elaborate a plan of action for communication purposes ;
- launch a process to solicit signatures ;
- keep the Observatory’s secretariat informed of the initiatives taken and their evolution