Rape, Sexual Slavery, and Forced Marriage at the International Criminal Court: How Katanga Utilizes a Ten-Year-Old Rule but Overlooks New Jurisprudence

In 2003, women and girls in the village of Bogoro in the Democratic Republic of Congo were sexually enslaved. Leader Germain Katanga was brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC0 on a number of charges. Even though there was sufficient evidence, forced marriage was not charged due to lack of international jurisprudence and lack of recognition of forced marriage as a crime against humanity. This article examines the history of international prosecution of sexually-based crimes and discusses the precedents set by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It concludes that Katanga should be found guilty of his alleged crimes. The article also discusses the crime of forced marriage and its recent recognition as an independent crime against humanity by the Special Courts of Sierra Leone (SCSL). The author recommends that forced marriage be recognized as a particular crime of sexual slavery.