The Center for Justice and Accountability (www.cja.org), on whose founding Board of Directors I served, has just announced a significant victory for justice. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered Emmanuel”Toto”Constant to pay $19 million in damages to three women who survived rape, other torture, and attempted killing committed by FRAPH, the notorious Haitian death squad that operated under the command of Constant. CJA notes that the judgment “marks the first time where someone has been held accountable for the state-sponsored campaign of rape in Haiti.” Acknowledging rape as torture is also significant as this was an Alien Tort Claims Act case decided post-Sosa (see Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004)) and a Torture Victim Protection Act case.
Jennie Green of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who was part of the litigation team, stated: “In holding that rape is a form of torture, this decision is an important addition to the body of law prohibiting sexual violence. The courageous women who brought this case have sent a message that torturers cannot live freely in the United States and will be held accountable.”The court order with the findings of fact (which are grim reading indeed), conclusions of law, and award of damages appears here. News stories on the case appear here. A good overview of issues, facts and law appears in the CJA/CCR press release here. A press release on the case is here and background information about the case and about the targeting of women in Haiti in the early 1990s appears here.
–Stephanie Farrior
Congratulations!! That is really wonderful news. I worked on similar issues related to the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early nineties, and it continues to boggle my mind that anyone could argue that sexual violence could not be viewed as torture. These women have done all of us a great service by bringing their action and persevering.