Victim centred? Not so much….

#MeToo

Being made seen

In early leaks about the ongoing sexual harassment case against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court), a number of details about the reporter/accuser were made public. These included nationality, age, role and her initials. That is an extraordinary amount of personal identifying information for someone who should be afforded confidentiality.

This information was sufficient to identify the woman concerned to anyone working at the ICC, anyone who might have access to staff information there, many people who have worked with the Office of the Prosecutor (OtP), some international human rights lawyers and others who have dealings with the OtP or the Court. Her experiences became known to her professional networks.

She was made seen.

None of the media reports that I have seen has noted that she had asked for her details to be made public. She didn’t declare her report to the world, she didn’t go public. Her status as the target of the alleged sexual harassment, who she is, was available to many. 

This cannot but be extremely distressing for her and the cause of harm.

Additionally, the nature of the alleged sexual harassment was reported in the media. Sexual harassment can involve the invasion of personal space, violation of bodily autonomy, assault on a person’s sense of self, of their integrity and ability to hold themselves with confidence and pride in their world of work and beyond.  The harms of sexual assault are often poorly recognised, respected or prioritised in case handling. They are little explained or respected in parts of the media which appear barely to have regard to how the reporter of abuse might feel or react when reading public accounts of intimate details of her life. Her dignity seems to be something beyond their imagination and professional action.  

Thus, a relatively junior staffer had her devastating account made public of sexual abuse by her very senior boss, who had high international standing, had her identity made known to people in her world of work; they were also informed of the nature of the sexual aggression (my word).

In this case, as it is in many others, the removal of power over oneself that is sexual harassment was compounded by the removal of control over the telling of her experience. She did not get to choose whether, where, when or with whom these details would be shared. How humiliating and, in everyday terms, how desperately unfair and unjust. The continuity between any sexual harassment she may have experienced and the shredding of her dignity in the public square is clear to anyone who cares to look.  It offers a damning disincentive to others who might consider reporting.

I have chosen not to link to the articles which have divulged such details but they are easily found on the internet if any reader so wishes.

Implying malignant survivorhood

A prominent media approach to this case has involved a political argument in defence of the accused: that Israel’s Mossad was somehow implicated in the allegations, seeking to undermine, at best, the Prosecutor, in particular his work on the warrants for the arrest of Israeli politicians.

This narrative has gained traction amongst many who have sympathy with the Palestinian cause.

But let’s take a closer look at this damning narrative, with the survivor in view. What do the implied and largely unsaid elements of this defence say about her?

Isreal and Mossad may have their reasons to attack the Prosecutor at this time – I am not making comment on that. Rather, I am concerned that blaming Isreal or its allies for the allegations of sexual harassment casts damning aspersions on the reporter of that harassment.

If Israel /Mossad are indeed the instigators or in other ways prime movers behind the woman’s allegations in order to discredit and perhaps remove the Prosecutor, many questions need to be addressed to complete that account. They include: did she enter the employment of the Court with this aim? Has she always been in their employ? Is she a spy, an agent? How did she pass the vetting, the background or other checks in place for ICC staff? What does she stand to gain from it? Is she a malign presence, who has cunningly worked her way to become the Prosecutor’s close aide, thus able to allege (without factual substance we must assume) sexual harassment?

Perhaps she has been seduced by irresistible rewards that await her. Perhaps she is their puppet, perhaps she has been bought off by them; perhaps she is opposed to the work of the OtP in its entirety.  The first supposition suggests that she was planted or used by more powerful players with whom she is allied. The second suggests that she is a malign actor who did not need to be manipulated by Israel/Mossad but instead it might be that she went in search of these sympathetic allies.

If she is indeed what these narratives suggest of her, then no doubt she will have been supported through this process and given great legal advice throughout the case.  Perhaps then she been under the protection of the Israeli state through this time? Does a stunning career opportunity await her at the end of this process?

How will her OtP colleagues receive her should she return to her post? For sure she will not easily be able to continue to work at the ICC nor find employment elsewhere should this characterisation of her be accurate or find credibility.

First the woman concerned had personal and intimate information about her life made public without her permission. Secondly, this account of Israeli or Mossad led malfeasance has erased her from the story, except by implication. Both the publicisation of details and the implications of her ulterior political motivations deny her voice: she has been muted throughout. They also potentially damage profoundly how she will be seen by potential employers. Her future has been terribly injured.

Some will say that allegations have been made against the Prosecutor which are also serious and possibly career damaging and see this is analogous. They would be correct on the first point but not on the second. Such serious allegations should and have been subject to scrutiny, have been investigated and, depending on the findings of the investigative and review outcomes, may bring some punitive action. The reporter however has little if any redress against the media and its informants on what should be confidential matters, for the damage they have brought to her health, family, career and life more broadly.

Those who have made, implied or amplified such accounts that damn a woman who has alleged sexual harassment have raised another red flag to any person considering raising a report. Separately I note the range of disincentives to report in international systems, which include institutional closure around its powerful senior staff, opaqueness of progress, denial of access to full outcomes and career-damaging risk of stigma. The ability of a powerful man and/or his allies to tarnish a reporter’s reputation, harm her well-being and profoundly to mar her future career prospects in this way is part of that sometimes labyrinthine, often opaque, always risky journey that is the experience of making a report of sexual harassment.

Investigating the reporter of abuse

It was reported in the media that a private investigation firm was engaged to look into the woman who made the allegations against the Prosecutor. The Guardian reported that this initiative looked into both the woman who made the allegations and her family, including her child.

Take that in – there are organisations that think it right to investigate women who may have been subjected to sexual harassment seeking, it seems fair to assume, to find dirt on them and undermine their credibility. What a scary message any victim of a powerful abuser must receive: on top of dealing with the abuse and its harms, reporting systems and organisations that have not been designed to hear or respect her, she may then be targeted by private investigation firms. The one named by the Guardian in this case in Highgate, in London, but my guess is that they are not the only company doing this.

I offer my sympathy – support too if needed – for any woman who experiences sexual harassment inside such an organisation, as she would be sensible to conclude that the organisation cannot hold her well-being in its priorities and would instead seek to undermine her.

The enduring wrong-doer in sexual harassment

The #MeToo movement prompted many institutions and workplaces to declare that they are victim-focused in their work. They shouted about or developed their policies against sexual harassment and discovered the valuable currency of the term zero-tolerance. Some did more meaningful work.

But the cultures which enable sexual harassment and the knee-jerk and unreflexive problematisation of the person or people who inform their employer of abuse in their ranks, remain dominant in practice.

Parts of the media appear to be keen to participate in victim smearing or blaming either without thinking or deliberately so. Private investigation firms are in on it too. There are webs of institutions, organisations and beliefs that continue to marginalise and harm those already disempowered by their lesser status vis a vis their abusers.

When we talk of systems of inequality, of patriarchy, when we reject talk of bad apples this is what we mean. It is about these patterns, behaviours, beliefs and loyalties that harm and shrink women’s lives across time and place.