Summary of statement by Ms. Francoise Ngendahayo, Advisor on Gender Issues and Assistance to Victims in the ICTR

In the ICTR we are not as advanced as in the ICTY, since we have built our rules on the provisions of the ICTY. Therefore there were no provisions on victims’ representation. However, we hope that this can be included by future amendments of the rules. In 1997, I wrote a proposition with an amendment to rule 34, which includes assistance to victims. In the proposition I tried to exploit the word assistance. The proposition was met with a lot of resistance, people said I was going outside of the mandate. Despite this, three components in my proposition was accepted by New York in July 1999: - Legal representation - Medical assistance - Financial assistance. One big obstacle against the participation of victims, is the lack of information about their rights. As an example, women who support themselves through agricultural work did not get any compensation for loss of income. Only persons with formal salaries were compensated to begin with. I had to point at the Beijing-declaration before it was recognized that loss of agricultural work should also be compensated.

Further, many witnesses are afraid to come to Arusha to testify. There have been instances where witnesses have been killed upon return to Rwanda. It is not sure that these killings are related to their testifying in Arusha, but nevertheless it undermines the witnesses’ willingness to testify in court.