Journal, November 19

Last weekend, CEDEMUNEP received a distressed phone call from Carmen, the young rape victim who we have been accompanying over the last few months.  Through her tears, Carmen explained that on Wednesday, she was to participate in the Reconstruccion de los Hechos (Reconstruction of the Facts), and she was in urgent need of emotional, legal, and political support.  In Peru, the justice system requires that the victim be reunited with the accused in a meeting with their lawyers, in the physical location where the crime took place, in order to tell their respective versions of the story.  The lawyers press both parties for details, while the interrogated try to deliver convincing narratives (sometimes complex webs of lies) with no contradictions within or between them.  This is obviously an incredibly traumatic event for the victim, as s/he must come face-to-face with his/her offenders, usually for the first time since the crime was committed, and watch them deny all responsibility for their actions.  I was shocked that Carmen, or any victim of sexual violence, would have to endure this, and I agreed to travel with my co-workers to Ica to accompany Carmen through the process.

Although I have studied Conflict Resolution at the University of Waterloo, and have some knowledge of the criminal justice systems in Canada and the United States, the concept of the Reconstruction of the Facts was new to me, and I certainly was not prepared for what I encountered in real life.  What took place at the Municipal Building in Ica on Wednesday was strange and horrific, and if it was painful for me, it was much worse for Carmen and the friends and family who had come to support her.  Although Carmen entered the meeting in a remarkably calm state, she fled the building hours later and sobbed in her father’s arms, while a crowd of cameramen and photographers surrounded her, and her supporters hurled biting insults at the municipal officials as they ducked into their cars. 

While I am a strong proponent of Restorative Justice, which helps to bring together victims, offenders, and the community to engage in a process of healing and restoration, I believe that it should be a voluntary process.  From what I observed on Wednesday, forcing the victim to confront his/her attackers in a situation in which both parties are primarily concerned with “saving face,” rather than building relationships,  pits both sides against each other, and causes community members to take sides, escalating the conflict and nearly eliminating any chance of future reconciliation.  As a student of Development, I am deeply concerned by the immediate emotional harm, and the long-term social harm that this process does to individuals and communities that are required to participate.  Who is the justice system serving, if not those who have been affected by crime?  Must victims be re-victimized by the criminal justice system?

In light of Restorative Justice Week, which begins today, I have been moved to envision what a true Reconstruction could look like.  What if the government established victims’ assistance programs that ensured that low-income victims like Carmen had the legal representation, and mental, physical, and social support they needed to recover from violent experiences and navigate the justice system?  What if there was a professionally-mediated space in which the mayor and his cronies could express remorse, and Carmen could talk about the pain that she has experienced?  What if, instead of leaving “justice” up to the state, the victim and offender worked together to create their own solution, and the community created a circle of accountability and support to facilitate long-term development?  While it seems like Peru is impossibly far away from achieving these ideals, I am inspired by the knowledge that what is now a worldwide Restorative Justice movement began in my own hometown of Kitchener-Waterloo, with folks like me who just wanted to do things a little bit differently.