Rape has always been seen as an inevitable consequence of war Collateral Damage an opportunistic byproduct of conflict and conquest but today we know that rape is also used as military strategy as a weapon in its own right of all war crimes rape is the least likely to come to light. In bosnia rwanda congo and syria women and children were the main victims. In the libyan conflict it is men who appear to have been the targets although proof has been hard to come by. Even after six months of investigation there are still no leads the moment the word rape is mentioned in libya everyone falls silent only one person has dared to break that silence back in march twentieth eleven at the very start of the revolution. The man accused the regime of raping insurgents her cry was heard around the world the dictator was toppled but libya was plunged into civil war. Rumors of rape continue to grow. The International Community professed concern but then the matter was dropped. Libya has become a power keg. Thousands of migrants pass through the country on their way to the mediterranean sea. The state has collapsed and two rival governments have risen in its wake armed militias rule the streets. Rumors of rape continue but have still not been confirmed. One day the veil began to lift across the border in tunisia a former libyan official agreed to speak. About ive never seen any libyan customers here im showing you that. But they dont say much. To lose their afraid and i tell you why is it libya there are many different alliances. You never know. Whos with whom. Take me for example out of school no one knows whose side im on when i talk to someone i try not to reveal who i am or who i work for. Everyone is scared you dont want to risk giving away information. To chalmette. Dont know how awful of our fashion model it outlawed. In libya ramadan was a Public Prosecutor in the chaos following the overthrow of gaddafi in two thousand and twelve he sent militia members to prison for murder the very next day they were released and threatened to kill him. Thank you my friend. Ramadan left the country. In tunis he joined a group of libyan activists in exile. He spent months coordinating the activities of people who want to break through the silence and expose the crimes being committed in their homeland all of the crimes. Yes so much to open. Every. Community event handcuffed from behind. Me where is he now. Emoticon for apparently in tripoli. And this video was filmed near lets watch it and then you can explain the new video this. Week. So. Just the opposite. That said they saw the light sadistic. Said you know. Hes got a good look of yeah and then you know what. Even though you know it happens because the victims tell you their stories in the car on a video and you see it with your own eyes. You really get to see it again after you know. So to be with the other girl and they filmed it then let them go home i dont want to kill those two. Theres another one we dont see and was also part of the group. He was sitting back there. They did everything to him to go down his pants and shove the gun into him some of the penetrated him like this here in the video who. When i asked if i could put it in the report he said no no you can write everything but that. I wanted to help him. Ok. I understand. In libya people say yes hell. If you say that guy was mistreated. Instead of saying its wrong they say what did he do to deserve it thats true your pov and some other look for a reason they always say yes stuff hell he deserves it. Itll take us fifty years to get over this constant television. The war in libya rape is something unspeakable a to booze so powerful that it must be silenced. An entire nation is in denial. The man is an underground activist but hes determined to bring the issue of rape out into the open. To. Him it has received Death Threats he carries his entire life in a suitcase and sleeps in a different place every night. In the limits of war when you see a libyan someone from your country doing such things i mean you feel ashamed. If you walk well of course but when i was in libya i ended up hating all libyans but my father couldnt but its still my country couldnt off over that everyone is fighting every one of us how its a mess no sane person could be happy there. And i would look after gadhafi is death in twenty eleven the world thought the war was over and the salafi be able to have been terrible. But when gadhafi fell another war began and i thought how could. This. That that. We should know if someone told you your brother was killed or your brother was raped or what would be worse my brother was raped as one. For a long time yet seen remained in the shadows hiding behind his computer a tired and hesitant voice saying that he knew men and women who had been raped and who needed help in reality he was talking about himself. One day in November Yasin arrived in tunis. Us and you will have to hire. Me i did you can offer to pay a victim millions to testify in court she still say theres no way for i can tell you what happened to me so i dont want to be known a victim is afraid of being recognized he would be humiliated. Lack of the high have you checked feel or feel the fear is always with you prof if you become paranoid if you think everyone knows it was a cubit of being upset whatever happens theyll be no justice. For you thats the worst part of publisher you. Well the criminal who did this is walking free usually go bar. If he were to find out that i testified he would tell me. And everyone would not particularly here. It is winter in tunis the drainage system is overflowing and the investigation is at a standstill. Image and ramadan has spent months interviewing the victims theyve gathered a massive amount of information on the crimes committed in libya. But they still do not have evidence solid enough to be admissible before an International Court of justice and they lack support. Celine by day knows libya well shes an expert on International Law and a criminal investigator with twenty Years Experience tracking Sexual Violence in conflicts around the globe in two thousand and thirteen she helped draft a law intended to protect the victims of rapes committed under regime. That law has yet to be enacted. Danos that war crimes will continue if the law does not intervene. She is determined to continue her fight. Selene is going to meet the mad and ramadan. We are. A team its not just me and the man that we have many libyans who. Need to work outside on the ground and what we are trying to do we are trying to collect a lot of the criminalization of from this or and organizations as owns two thousand and eleven. Since ok since two thousand and eleven and two thousand and eleven. There is sometimes not just militias. Do the crime there is people rocking the. Ministry of the minister frontier now we can deal with this gun. You know that recently had the i. C. C. For rape you know the case bamba he was sentence and he didnt rape nobody but she was sentence for rape because he ordered it or even knew that it was happening of and he didnt do nothing so thats a very important case because night existing the jurisprudence and this is also something we can use in our our peace for almost three issues really so close of what you were to mention how we count toward together our team and you and your team to submit this case is international because you know of the idea is all the case you have each individual situation that you may have collected each time we need to look at when need to happen and where it happens because if you dont do that you get killed before a court thats why i am telling you this we have to work on that and to to show our systematic it is you know and then you have a case. Legally speaking. You are in. In a special situation. Because you cannot bring a case in india but it doesnt mean that he does to stop now i think we can work on that to put pressure towards international in stones you are been you know manic cetera and prepare a case for the i. C. C. And we need to push for the i. C. C. So we have to show that this is a. I owe it to him to bring a solid thing. For him and i think that it is a paradox of International Law for the International Criminal court to agree to take on a case the libyan activists in tunis must first establish that a work crime was committed in their homeland which the court will be able to prove their. Examines the files and trusted to her in complete witness statements and fragments of medical records are a testament to years of persecution and abuse. We need to own the constant humiliation in the home in front of your children your family. Says that is destroying your dignity the dignity of your children and family and your community you call the body the colors the battleground once that happens Everything Else follows its like a. I dont know what to compare it to the question why cant i think. Its just. That there are. Sexual violence in war has always existed the rape of the say by and women as the spoils of war set out the warriors reboard they all but there was a major shift in the one nine hundred ninety s. What amazes me is that we didnt grasp the importance of that change which it did affect them when mass rape began to be used in bosnia and rwanda become a strategic instrument. Just to name one example an example in the sun has whether its boko haram or they used state there are written manuals on our textbooks in other words these are methods that are being developed and planning in advance that will sit back and not simply spontaneous acts. It often takes years of investigation to document the use of mass rape in war for a med and ramadan this is just the beginning of a long process. But it was its hard absolutely we have a long way to go either we continue or we quit. And want to so i dont hide im not a mystic but im also afraid i must not say how long whenever i hear that fighting against it scares me. And later then if only they go out and fight in the desert but they come instead into the cities and attack civilians. Just seen has reappeared. This time hes ready to tell his story the revolution the seizure of the city of misrata by gadhafi troops and his attempt to escape. Me. What happened is very hard to describe. You know they rounded us up more than thirty people. And mystic took us to the prison cinta welcome. Home but he threw us out of the cars like gasoline thats in the can and eighty our hands were tied behind our backs out of our legs were tied. And going to see us so they toss this out. Its just like that and i know what youre going down to some fell face down. On the shoulder i hadnt any different but one how. Can any have that the way you felt was a matter of law. And you call he went through but that is unimaginable you know that deep you will fly hostler they tortured us in a special room. All the prisoners in misrata are tortured that. They knew with which the worst thing was to let us live and so that we would never forget what they did. In the midst that never. Even admission of i cant talk about such things america said its too difficult to solve. Yaseen believes that what happened that night in. March twentieth eleven has made him in fertile. But hes never had any medical tests he had no one he could trust. To miss provides him the anonymity he needs to see a doctor. Ahead is this an old or recent injury in the. Its old. Its an old injury you have that does it sting yes it does all right come with me. Yes he needs more tests and medical exams but its too much for him once again he disappears. He said but. Its a method of domination curious healing for them is too mild perceive that its just a bullet theres no suffering. Interest in this way you make them suffer. You know what you are not that man had an anal fissure a wound for him its a physical thing its like having an indelible stain a mark that says you were raped feel of you lee usually i think it wont let him forget it even ten years later. Hes been raped defiled for life is very symbolic someone is humiliated made to submit and no one talks about it anymore not. Someone who has been raped will never seek to dominate its an instrument of submission its despicable but its a weapon of war in the open if you dont do you. Then peace in libya is a pandoras box. And one crime comes out then another and then another its never ending this and often. Is there a pattern a sequence of events. Every statement by a witness however incomplete could contain details that add substance to the file that is being assembled. Fatma isnt from libya but she lived there she was kidnapped and raped like just seen during the siege of misrata now shes trying to come to terms with what happened. Chicks if you sit in there i know its hard was it was i worked in bosnia there was no no in bosnia book or rape it was used a lot to humiliate the women the media to fight and humiliate their husbands and in many different. Fifty of them come on just like in libya thats why as part of my job i often talk to women who think its their fault or dont know that this has happened to other people to their son. Oh its theres a lot that i was involved up masada to i had a couple one dot com i know its not my fault. I. Reckon but i never thought it would happen to me. I have. A right a shallow or even though i know such things could happen during a war but when i was given a lot i think i dont want to talk about the problem because its not like it is for you in the west its a very difficult topic for us theyre still doing it today i know they had orders to rape to humiliate him to leave they came from gadhafi. Pretty good there. Rape on command thats all fat mom wants to say but she does provide a few concrete details thisll jers uniforms their weapons their vehicles a portrait of the soldiers who carried out the orders begins to emerge. So near was one of god obvious soldiers who is now in tunis on good days his gaze is open on bad ones its a skull. His body is covered in scars. He says that what happened made him go a bit crazy. Some used units took part in the siege of misrata in twenty eleven he was witness to some of the early horrors of the revolution. Us. During the war we went into peoples houses. Terrible things were done to them. Some soldiers rape people. But i cant tell you the battalions name. But its completely true. The minute a soldier always follows orders. He a base the officers about him. C b they tie up the brother the father and rate the daughter in front of them. You want the revolution but say look where raping your daughter and. Others even rape the muffins. Afterwards they say i was in misrata and i raked benghazi i raped at tobruk i raped what is this boasting. I raped your sister rate chuck. But i did this to you i also rate joe mother what kind of a fight is that almost. All of those. And all the one after that the revolutionaries were even worse. When i was in prison they did everything to what they teach us they stopped us thinking raped us were going to repay you gadhafi guys they said it was. So horrible you know what i mean. The code everyone uses violence but thats wrong. Rape destroys everything it is a country apart and i thought. The first campaigns of mass rape were intended to crush the libyan revolution then revenge took its place libyas former rulers deployed rape. The new ones adopted the same tools it was a vicious circle. In the spring of twenty seventeen the International CriminalCourt Finally broke its silence published an indictment against a senior official of the gadhafi regime who had allegedly ordered soldiers to commit rape stering the revolution the libyan exiles had to act quickly and they had to gather more evidence in support of the case documentation to prove that rapes were ongoing. They had to go back to libya despite the risk. Of course im afraid who wouldnt be. But you know the militias are stronger than ever that they can kidnap you and kill you on the spot. They dont even try to talk or bug him they catch you torture you and kill you and then they throw you by the roadside and thats it. You know who wouldnt be afraid. But i have no choice but to the clock is running we have to continue our work the investigation must go on the ship of. Libya has crumbled the capital tripoli is a volcano at times it is deceptively dormant at other times it erupts. At the other end of the city a man is waiting for a minute. After six years in prison he was released just two weeks ago. Ali is just twenty nine but looks like an old man. Kind of kind of hesitant if you want to tell me something im listening to you and see if you can. Ahmet ibrahim died in front of my eyes. They said youre going to die you have to walk a dog may god help us. That they had dogs and commanded them to attack us. And we knew they had dogs. They came in and beat us. But all right now tell me what kind of abused. Torture rape. Torture and even worse q tell me. I can tell you what happened with the migrants and the to where. They threw them in to gather. Here in the prison yes they wanted them to mount each other. They shut them up together naked yes naked. The entire night and. She knew she was else happened. And it did you see prisoners get raped she put yes but they wont talk about it. They had to get on top of each other to feel your style. But i didnt do it sounded ok. In the cell theyd come in and hit my genitals with a stick. Theyd say undress take off your clothes. And told me to get on my hands and knees. Just look. Good naked and yes. Others away you will know we were in single cells. Guns and so you were alone. And and then they penetrated you with things. With a stick or something else. A stick. The out of the many times. That we thought that they had a razor. At the end and if you moved. Theyd hit you with it or. Ill show you another time now i have physical problems i have leakage from my bowels. Its not something that will come to you i understand. Have you been treated to. The. World at times it goes away. In the. Alley in tripoli and ashmit in tunis describe the same pattern the same methods abduction torture forcing migrants to carry out rapes. The crimes appear to be systematic ones. But only reveal something new. Because hes from the town of tal where he was subjected to special cruelty. From the to where guns are mostly the descendants of black slaves. In libya theyve always been considered second class citizens they were accused without proof of having supported got off the soldiers in the rapes they carried out in rebel to. Downs and cities. As a result the to where guns have become the focus of hatred. On the. Internet is able to meet with to where going to activists who have recorded the abuses suffered by their community they have lists of missing persons former prisoners the names of secret prisons precise dates. Just because. We lose it. For imad one thing is clear his own people are being persecuted abducted and systematically abused. The lists are proof. The to wh