GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF RECONCILIATION | DR HELEN SCANLON that over thirty per cent of judges were women. At the outset the most serious crimes including rape were not tried before gacacas, but were instead dealt with by the national courts or the ICTR. However from 2008, the gacacas were given jurisdiction over rape cases and according to Amick between 2008 and 2010 6,608 cases of rape and genocide were heard.85 Morris suggests that the number of rape cases tried demonstrated “the minimal attention given to the cases of rape: the gacaca could have conceivably tried an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 of these cases”.86 This was reinforced by concern that the cultural context did not allow for revelations of sexual violence as these could lead “to community ostracism, ineligibility to marry and other secondary harms”.87 As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that Brounéus shows that women revealed more negative experiences of the gacacas than men. She notes that women did not believe the gacacas made living together easier. In fact she reveals many women believe the gacaca process actually intensified their suffering.88 Gender and Reconciliation in South Africa89 Twenty-two years into South Africa’s democracy debates have re-emerged over the limitations of discourses on reconciliation in the country. This stems from the fact that in the two decades since South Africa’s first free and fair elections in 1994 a widening chasm has emerged between the promises of reconciliation, exemplified in discourses around the rainbow nation, and the realities of on-going, some say increasing, poverty, inequalities and racism. Indeed, South Africa’s beleaguered transformation is particularly apparent in terms of the prevalent level of gender-based violence, often cited as the highest in the world, as well as the ongoing feminisation of poverty. South Africa is currently the world’s most consistently unequal societies with a Gini coefficient of between 0.660 to 0.696.90 South Africa’s national reconciliation process was primarily navigated through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that emerged in 1995 as a result of the negotiated settlement achieved through Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). As has been noted elsewhere, the negotiations were infused with moral and political compromises which continue to confront the lives of those who have remained marginalised since South Africa’s transition.91 Mahmood Mamdani has detailed how compromises reached at CODESA meant that the nature of reconciliation promoted by the TRC “was arrived at in the political and legislative that preceded and made possible its creation”.92 Thus the Act creating the TRC outlined the Commission’s objective as being to both “promote reconciliation” and to facilitate the promotion of “national unity in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past”.93 As a result, Annelies Verdoolaege suggest that the TRC Commissioners’ branded a form of reconciliation that “was not so much oriented to the past; it was rather directed towards the present and the future”.94 It is also worth noting that a number of studies indicate that local justice mechanisms ordinarily overlook gender imbalances or inequalities, and may even serve to reinforce them. Since many local processes traditionally preclude women’s involvement, this also creates questions if quotas are implemented, as this inevitably changes the nature of the mechanisms. A UN study on the implementation of Resolution 1325 found that many indigenous mechanisms focus on a community truth told from a male perspective, while women’s truth is not a priority. For example, Victor Igrega has revealed that in Gorongosa, Mozambique ceremonies used in the wake of the civil war involved only the spirits of deceased men despite women being active participants in the conflict. Another concern linked to ethno-justice is that sexual and gender-based crimes universally carry significant social stigma, which may create obstacles to women revealing their experiences, as noted above in relation to broader processes. Concern has been expressed over the difficulties of women having to testify against someone within their community even in contexts such as Rwanda where closed hearings were allowed. While the South African TRC’s achievements cannot, and should not, be dismissed, it is important to also reflect on whether its failure to investigate the structural impact of apartheid has in some ways allowed acceptance of the ongoing violence in the country and, in particular, genderbased violence. As Sheila Meintjes and others contend, South Africa is a society living in an aftermath where “the political violence against women committed in the past has direct and indirect links to current levels of violence”.95 There is also the question of whether local processes are effective when addressing crimes of the magnitude experienced in a number of recent conflicts. Many local mechanisms (including gacacas in Rwanda and Mato Oput in northern Uganda) were initially intended to settle disputes between individuals, families or villages, or when one person had committed a crime against another within his or her ethnic group. Local mechanisms may therefore be inadequate when it comes to dealing with mass human rights violations or widespread sexual violence. Anxiety has also been raised over the fact that women’s bodies are often used to mediate conflicts, for example by marrying off girls to compensate for losses. As such, there is concern over how local reconciliation processes can be implemented in a way that does not encroach on women’s human rights. As such, anxieties about South Africa’s transition have become increasingly loud especially relating to the issue of the country’s stark failure to confront historically entrenched socio-economic inequalities. For some this cannot be divorced from compromises made to support a new political and legal dispensation without engagement with the structural legacies of apartheid. These concerns raise far deeper questions over the field of transitional justice and its preoccupation with individual violations as the route to ensure transformation and, ultimately, reconciliation. As Mahmood Mamdani contends “the semi-official narrative 8