ABSTRACT
In international law, no definition of rape existed until the late 1990s. From the 1990s onwards, there has been a steady growth of international and hybrid courts. Concomitantly, there have been major legal developments in the prosecution of rape and sexual violence in conflict. When prosecuting rape and sexual violence, one of the major challenges that courts necessarily face is to find witnesses who are willing to testify. In the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) case at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the original indictment against the defendants did not include any charges of sexual violence. International courts have made some effort to highlight the important reality that rape and sexual violence in conflict affect men as well as women. The fight against impunity for rape and sexual violence in conflict is necessarily long and complex, a fact that reflects some of the enormous challenges inherent in prosecuting these crimes.
