Tesis sobre el tema "Victims' actions"

History is regrettably replete with wars and dictatorial regimes that claimed the lives of millions of people. Most of the time the planners were not held accountable for their misdeeds. Fortunately in recent years the idea of people being prosecuted for mass atrocities was launched and debated. The purpose of this study was to propose avenues for promoting respect for victims rights. It examined the rationale of the victims reparation, its evolution, its denial and its rebirth. It canvass victims rights in domestic law especially in the civil law in comparison with international law. It proposed means whereby the international community may better address the issue of victims rights.

The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with reporting incidents of sexual violence after seventy-two hours at the sexual assault service centre in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal. This descriptive study was based on retrospective analysis of 534 medical records of victims of sexual violence at the Newcastle hospital between 2005 and 2009. A data collection sheet was designed to extract information from three sources namely: the victims‟ hospital files, J88 forms and specific hospital forms that were completed for sexual assault victims. The collected data were entered into and processed for analysis using EPI INFO statistical package. Frequencies, means and standard deviations were calculated for the data set. Test of significance was also done using the Chi-square test and presented using odds ratios with 95% CI and p-value of <
0.05. The victims‟ age range was 2-81years (mean= 18.84, &sigma
=13.25). Approximately 87% were female and 59.4% of the victims were aged 0-17 years. One in five victims (19.7%) was HIV positive, and most (74.4%) reported rape with vaginal penetration. Fifty-nine percent reported within 72 hours of being assaulted. The most common reason for delayed reporting (21.5%) was fear of the perpetrator. Most of the sexual assaults were committed by male (96%) and single perpetrator (90%). Nearly a third (32.4%) of the sexual violence occurred within intimate relationships and more than two-thirds (68%) knew the perpetrators. In all, 35% sustained injuries during the assault and a third (34.5%) reported the use of weapons during the assault. Nearly half of the victims (48.7%) were referred to hospital by their relatives who also accompanied them to the facility (42.1%). Of the 198 victims that were offered post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), 87% collected the full 28-day course.

This paper is about the reparations regime of the International Criminal Court and reparations possibilities for victims of sexual violence. It will contain a legal analysis of the reparations system of 
the Court, including the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court. In a second step, the needs of women who experienced conflict related violence will be examined. The central 
 
question, which this paper will try to answer, is whether the ICC reparations regime has the ability to provide gender-sensitive reparations and thus make a contribution to the improvement of 
women&rsquo
s lives in post-conflict societies.

Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust is an organisation that trains and supervises a team of women counsellors who provide a counselling service to women rape survivors. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of the counsellors and the counselling co-ordinator regarding their perceptions on whether the training provided by the personal growth and counselling skills course is adequate in dealing with rape and its complexities.

Human trafficking has emerged over the past three decades as an issue of considerable concern for the international community, and governments around the world have committed themselves to enacting legislation to combat the trade in humans. This has resulted in the adoption of international standards and important obligations of governments, to address the trafficking in persons (TIP) and in particular child trafficking which appears as a worldwide form of modern-day slavery, and a facet of transnational organized crime. This study investigated the potential causes of this state of affairs, which could be the inadequacy of legal texts and absence of implementation mechanisms, lack of co-ordination amongst the actors implicated, the insufficiency of political will to respond to the problem, the permeability of borders, or the lack of information in the accounts of victims and their parents. The principle objective aimed to address and ensure safety, special protection and security to child victims of trafficking. In so doing this study identified the existing legal framework in the international and regional environment.

Despite community policing interventions, rape incidence in South Africa reflects a consistent increase over the past decade. Victim blame continues to be a pervasive aspect of this trauma - where society blames the victim more than the perpetrator for the rape. In unpacking the complexities of victim blame, research has identified sex role orientation of the observer as an important variable. Given that the polic service is often the first contact a rape victim has with the criminal justice system, this study investigated how sex role orientation impacts on rape victim blame in a sample of police officers.

By any standard, victim participation is a relatively new phenomenon in international criminal law proceedings. Incredible advances have been made in the effort to end impunity for crimes against 
umanity, war crimes, genocide and, more recently, aggression. As a result, great strides have been made in ensuring the direct participation of victims of grave violations of human rights 
in court proceedings against their perpetrators. Prior to this, grave violations of human rights committed during conflicts or periods of mass violence were either largely ignored or even if action 
was taken, victims of the crimes hardly had a &lsquo
say&rsquo
in the proceedings. With the advent of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) 
 
new dawn in the proceedings of international criminal law has emerged. The statutes that govern the ICC and ECCC have given a voice to victims in court proceeding buy ensuring 
victims participation.Despite these advances, scholars have criticized victim participation for being inconsistent in its application at the International Criminal Court.1 The criticism has come from 
scholars who have highlighted the unintended consequences of victim participation in court proceedings, arguing that their participation has resulted in the under- or misrepresentation of the 
actual experience of survivors of war, mass violence, or repression. These problems have arisen largely because the need to establish the guilt or innocence of the accused and to protect their 
due process rights, to abide by the rules of evidence and procedure, and to conserve judicial resources all cut against victim-witnesses'ability to tell their stories at these tribunals thereby 
resulting in a limited, and sometimes inaccurate, record of victims' experience.

Sexual violence leaves the victims psychologically traumatised and stigmatised in the eyes of its community. Used on a large scale, sexual violence can destabilise a society as a whole and when used during armed conflicts, it serves as a powerful weapon against members of a community. During armed conflicts, sexual violence is widespread and systematically used as a tool of war and this makes sexual violence amount to crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. This research paper critically analyses and evaluates sexual violence as an international crime, as well as its prosecution under international criminal law mainly by the International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC), International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (hereafter ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (hereafter ICTR). It discusses the problem of selectivity that can be observed in prosecuting sexual violence that has in fact, left many victims of sexual violence dissatisfied. By doing so, it analyses the law as it is to determine whether the law applied during sexual violence prosecutions is sufficient. The paper also states recommendations that can contribute to the effective prosecution of sexual crimes under international criminal law.

People outside of prison tend to imagine sex in prison as violent gang attacks on defenceless individuals, but in actual fact, sex in prison is more complicated than the isolated gang rapes that take place. For the purpose of this study, the researcher followed the qualitative research approach from a constructivist perspective to understand how participants portrayed or constructed their experiences of victimization and/or perceprion of rape.

Kenya&rsquo
s December 2007 Presidential elections sparked a wave of violent clashes over allegations of election rigging. The protests broke out along ethnic lines, causing greater civil unrest. There have been allegations that during these outbreaks of violence crimes against humanity were committed. This violence attracted world-wide concern and was universally condemned. Kenya is loathe to prosecute the perpetrators or those who bear the highest responsibility for the alleged commission of crimes against humanity. It has instead established a national investigatory mechanism, the Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (hereafter TJRC). This approach adopted by Kenya has been criticized for the fact that it fosters a culture of impunity. However, the Prosecutor of International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC) has used his proprio motu powers to initiate an investigation of alleged commission of crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of the Court. This research paper has analysed the reasons for the proprio motu intervention of the ICC in Kenyan situation. It also examined whether Kenya was unwilling or genuinely unable to prosecute the perpetrators of the post-election violence of 2007. Furthermore, the paper 
evaluated the provisions of the Kenyan TJRC, the major shortcomings of the Commission and the challenges it is facing in fulfilling its mandate. In conclusion the paper analysed the relationship between TJRC and ICC and re-evaluate any role that the two bodies could play in dispensing justice in Kenya. But before that, the paper laid down the factual 
background that led to the proprio motu interevention of the ICC in Kenya where a truth commission had alreday been established.

 

Crime victims once played a prominent role in the criminal justice system. Historically, victims who sought to bring their wrongdoers to justice conducted their own investigations and argued their own cases or employed others to do so. As time passed, 
a distinction was drawn between offences against the social order and disputes between individuals. Crime control became a function of government and the state increased its responsibility for the investigation and punishment of criminal conduct. Gradually, the victim was removed from the proceedings and relegated to serving as a witness for the state. The assumption was that the state, whilst representing the interests of society, would represent the interests of the victim also. This fallacy provided the foundation for a criminal justice which, until recently, encourage victim exclusion. In recent years, there has been a clear trend towards re-introducing the right of victims to participate in the criminal justice process. This international trend has been labelled the &bdquo
return of the victim‟. In South Africa, the Constitution and, in particular, the Bill of Rights contained therein underscore the move towards procedural rights for victims of crime. Moreover, the South African government has taken significant legislative steps to ensure that victims have formal rights in criminal justice proceedings. However, to date, comparatively little attention has been paid to the question of whether or not victims should be allowed a meaningful role in the process of plea and sentence negotiations. One of the aims of this study is to determine whether victims‟ rights are properly understood, defined and implemented within the criminal justice system. In particular, this study aims to clarify the rights of victims who find themselves affiliated with a specific stage of criminal prosecution, namely, negotiated justice.