Summary of Statement by Ms. Annette Lyth
Kvinna till Kvinna, Sweden

Ms. Lyth spoke of her experience working with the United Nations on the ground with survivors in Rwanda and her work with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kosovo. The key issues she noted were the competence of staff in the organs of the ICTR. For a long time there were no investigators who had worked with victims of sexual violence in their home countries, and she questioned if there were any now. She compared this to Kosovo where there were staff who were more experienced in the nature of such crimes and more sensitized.

She also noted that the survivors in Kosovo very much considered the ICTY as “theirs” as opposed to Rwanda where the survivors communities were distrustful of the Court and felt alienated from it, if ever brought in at all. She did note the beginnings of a sexual assault team in the ICTR but did not have information on its progress. She further noted that also ICTY had problems in their work with sexual violence. In contrast to the ICTR there are no special Sexual Assault Team in the structure if ICTY, and therefor it is difficult for the Tribunal to work with sexual violence in a more holistic way. The investigators are working on a rotating schedule which makes it difficult for one investigator to maintain regular contact with a witness and a victim of sexual violence may have to talk to different investigators.

She confirmed many of the points that victim B had made and made the following comments of what had been told to her by victims that had been to Arusha to testify:

- The witnesses stated repeatedly that they felt that they were treated like cattle. Forced to move in different directions without any explanations.
- The only time they had translation was during the trial sessions, the other times theye were not even able to ask for a glass of water since nobody around them spoke Kinyrwanda.
- They had no debriefing before the returned to their villages and neither did they have any escort that spoke Kinyarwanda. The witnesses expressed their frustration that they did not have anybody with whom they could share what they had been through.
- When they returned to their villages their neighbors knew where they had been.
- The witnesses were very concerned about their safety. One factor that contributed to their feeling of insecurity was that fact that the tribunal took so long before judgements were made.

Ms. Lyth stated that issues of victim participation and protection needed to be dealt with in a more structural and consequential way in the Rules. Now, the tribunals are dependent on the good will of the individuals working in those tribunals to do what must be done in as respectful and compassionate a way as possible. She noted that this cannot always be relied upon and it is thus very important to get the safeguards around these issues in the text first. An explicit recognition of such issues also serves to support the work of those in the tribunals.