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00:00Well, there's little doubt that forms of sexualized violence against Israeli women happened on
00:05October 7th.
00:06And we're going to talk more about all of that now with Céline Bardet, who is a lawyer
00:09and a founder of the NGO We Are Not Weapons of War.
00:13That's a French NGO that raises awareness on sexual violence related to conflicts at
00:17both a national and an international level.
00:19Céline, thank you so much for coming on the set to talk to us about this.
00:22Now, you were telling me that your NGO is preparing a new report about this that's due
00:26to come out very shortly.
00:27What at this point, one year on, can we concretely say about what happened in regards to sexual
00:32violence during these attacks?
00:34Well, what we know today is that sexual violence was used on October 7th and then was used
00:40again, also again, hostages during captivity.
00:44And this is something that we know now.
00:46And I think it's important to repeat it because we also know that at the beginning and for
00:50many months, it was questioned and put in, you know, and denied, etc.
00:55So we do know that.
00:56What we do not know is the scope, the modus operandi.
01:02Was it planned?
01:03You know, was it anticipated or not?
01:06This is what we need.
01:07I mean, this is we need more time for that to understand, you know, how it happened exactly.
01:13And what was the purpose of that?
01:14Were there, you know, specific objectives besides that?
01:18But but we do know that sexual violence was used on October 7th.
01:22And as you rightly mentioned, we alert about it, you know, at the beginning, immediately,
01:29everybody saw the images.
01:30So it's important that now we all agree on that.
01:33And I remember talking to you about a month or two after this attack first happened.
01:36You were telling me then what's so difficult in these kind of cases is that it's difficult
01:40to track down proof, particularly in regard to what happened on October 7th.
01:45Why is it so difficult to prove the sexual violence?
01:47Yeah, no, exactly.
01:48I would like to say in general, you know how difficult it is to prove sexual violence.
01:53But this case, October 7th, is so particular.
01:56Why?
01:57Because I think for many reasons, the institution also were overwhelmed.
02:02The scope was terrible.
02:04Nothing was properly documented.
02:06So basically, you have very few tangible and material element.
02:11That's the problem.
02:12Does it mean that you cannot say and, you know, establish that there were sexual violence?
02:16I think not.
02:17I think you can.
02:18But you have to work a little bit differently.
02:20So that's the difficulty of it.
02:22And also, as of today, and this is what our report is going to talk about, we have no
02:28survivor of sexual violence that spoke.
02:33Are they are they survivors?
02:35Even us, we are.
02:36It's difficult for us to answer that.
02:37It seems to be that it seems that there would be few of them, but they haven't talked.
02:43And what we recall also, and I think it's important for us to say that you need time,
02:48you need to protect people and you need to, you know, leave the necessary time to be able
02:52to talk.
02:53So, yes, that's a big challenge for this case in particular.
02:57And were there things that should have been done perhaps immediately by the authorities
03:00that weren't done after the attacks that might have helped in prosecuting?
03:05Yeah.
03:06Well, it's a bit surprising because, you know, I work in Sudan and so many other countries.
03:10You can expect that you don't find any doctor.
03:12They will not be, you know, legal and forensic documentation.
03:15Israel, it's a little bit more surprising.
03:18And that's the problem.
03:19I don't have all the answer.
03:20I think they were they were very overwhelmed, but there's also something very cultural,
03:24you know, the relation with body and and the dignity they put in that.
03:29And I think it was difficult for them to work on that, especially on women body.
03:34But but they should have documented, you know, they should have done all this.
03:39Maybe they have done it and they don't share it.
03:41That's also the problem, because the other difficulty in all of this, as you know, is
03:44that Israel has difficulty to cooperate because they do not trust, you know, external actors.
03:50And that's had to the thing.
03:52So they should have done all of that.
03:54They should have at least report and take picture and document all the mutilation that
04:03were done on the body of women.
04:05One thing I want to say also, the difficulty that is not their fault is that many, many
04:09bodies were degraded, you know, burned.
04:12And that's also a point because we will never know.
04:15And that's a bit of my thing that touched me personally is like I'm wondering, OK, how
04:21are we going to be able to tell the story of this woman who has been maybe raped and
04:27mutilated and sexually aggressed and then whose body was burned and then nothing is
04:33left and nobody saw anything?
04:35How do we recollect the story of this person?
04:38That's the big challenge that they have and that we have in this particular situation.
04:42And to make things even more complicated, as you said, there has been some controversy
04:45over the past few months.
04:47What do you have to say to accusations against the Israeli government that it was perhaps
04:50amplifying these stories of rape in its war against Hamas?
04:55No, I think, well, you know, now we live in a society and we can see it, especially with
05:00this conflict, that there's a lot of disinformation, manipulation.
05:03Everything is polarized, politically manipulated.
05:06We are very conscious, also us, because we are an international organization, that we
05:11are going manipulated all the time, you know, in one way or another, given what we are going
05:16to say.
05:17But, yes, it has been amplified by Israel.
05:20There were also lots of, you know, negation.
05:22For example, you know, I talk a lot with women in Israel and feminist organization.
05:29You cannot deny whether it is perceived or reality or both of it.
05:34They have been highly traumatized with that because they consider that they have not been
05:38listened to.
05:39And I think this is something that should alert us.
05:42So, yes, of course, everything is amplified.
05:45False information, you know, was said also.
05:48And we have to be careful with that.
05:49But, you know, it happened also with Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict.
05:52Everybody forgets about that, but they were false information.
05:55So that's why it's very important to try to stick on the fact and do this job and take
06:00the time to do it properly so we can give back, you know, like truth and justice to
06:05victims.
06:06And I think this is very important.
06:08Just to wrap up, do you think that the perpetrators of these kind of acts will be brought to justice?
06:12Well, that's a one million dollar question.
06:16You know, they are detained.
06:17I mean, some of them are detained, you know, by Israeli.
06:20This is also a good question.
06:21And I have no idea whether Israel intend to do to have a justice process because we don't
06:27know about that.
06:28So I don't know if these people will be brought to court.
06:31But that's why it's even more important to at least put back the reality of what happened.
06:35So, you know, to give back a kind of voice to the people who have been especially women
06:40and girls who have been through this horrible sexual violence.
06:45Celine, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us.
06:47You're a lawyer and the founder of We Are Not Weapons of War, a French NGO that raises
06:51awareness on sexual violence related to conflicts.
06:53Thank you so much for all of your work.
06:54Thanks to you.