University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Web)

Venue: Johannesburg
Time: 25th to 28th June 2018
Applications due: 19th of February 2018

In April 2012, the Special Court of Sierra Leone found Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, guilty on 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity. One of the crimes Taylor was convicted of was ‘conjugal slavery’, which was defined as a ‘claim by the perpetrator to a particular victim as his “wife” and the exercise of exclusive sexual control over her, barring others from sexual access to the victim, as well as … domestic work’ (430). This judgment has in turn been linked to a recurring pattern of sexual violence in a number of recent conflicts in Africa, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In all of these countries, captors have invoked the language of ‘marriage’ to structure their abuse of women and girls whom they have abducted. While these ‘marriages’ begin with violent capture, some have persisted years after the conflict has come to an end, and can be regarded as legitimate by family and society. This has … read more (Web).