Turning Reconciliation on Its Head: Responding to Sexual Violence Under the Khmer Rouge.

Source: (2005) Seattle Journal for Social Justice. 3: 785-823.

The nature and extent of human rights violations and brutalities committed under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s are well known and documented. To the long and terrible litany of injustices, Katrina Anderson adds sexual violence against women. Anderson recounts how the recent telling of one Cambodian woman’s story of being raped by Khmer Rouge soldiers is the beginning of public acknowledgement of the sexual brutalities of the period. Despite the widespread knowledge of injustices and violence, no individuals, according to Anderson, have been held accountable for the Khmer Rouge crimes, nor has much been done to seek some kind of national reckoning and reconciliation with the past. In 2004, finally, the Cambodian National Assembly approved a special tribunal to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime. In view of all of this, Anderson describes sexual crimes committed under that regime, analyzes the limitations of the tribunal in addressing those crimes, and offers recommendations to ensure that prosecutions for rape are conducted in a way that empowers women victims and witnesses.