Fighting for Justice
Human rights lawyer Natasha Latiff seeks redress for survivors of sexual violence
Natasha Latiff has spent more than a decade working in the most dangerous of places and situations, including war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, where bomb attacks and assassinations of activists and aid workers are unfortunately common. In 2008, the Singaporean human rights lawyer founded Strategic Advocacy for Human Rights (SAHR), a non-profit organisation to defend and advocate for the rights of survivors of sexual violence by providing legal aid.
Operating in multiple locations across the globe, including Vanuatu and South Sudan, SAHR consists of lawyers like Natasha, who are qualified to practise in multiple jurisdictions, as well as grassroots human rights activists and survivors-turned-defenders who have risen up in the fight against gender-based violence.
The statistics of such atrocities are shocking. For one, global estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner, or sexual violence by a non-partner in their lifetime. Another WHO study in 2020 also shows that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation—a traditional practice often carried out in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that is a violation of human rights, and serves no proven health benefits.
“We’re working under complex circumstances and sometimes, we don’t have all the right evidence for our prosecutors to pursue a case. But what we can do is make the perpetrator a fugitive for the rest of his life. This includes making sure that he never occupies public office and that we are still watching if he ever strikes again,” says Natasha, who also serves as legal director of SAHR, in a Zoom interview.
The SAHR team handles cases on a pro bono basis, and is constantly fundraising to support lawyers on the ground as they navigate the entrenched gender-biased laws in judicial systems around the world.
Occasionally, the team members also go undercover to assist in gathering incriminating evidence and represent survivors in court.
One case that Natasha and her team have been working on since September 2019 is that of an Italian humanitarian aid worker, who along with four other colleagues, was raped by soldiers from the South Sudan army during an attack in the Terrain Hotel in the capital Juba in 2016. The victim has since made her case publicly known, to inspire other sexual assault victims who might be afraid to step forward for fear of their lives. Natasha was appointed to negotiate her right to receive reparations from the South Sudan government. (Reparations can come in many forms: medical care, legal services or even monetary compensation.) But navigating the complicated political undercurrents is no easy feat, especially when government officials are involved.
For reparation negotiations to be successful, perpetrators will have to be prosecuted and held accountable with rape condemned as a war crime. For the Italian aid worker, her case set a precedent for other sexual assault victims in South Sudan to receive the compensation they rightly deserve.
“Do we demand that a person goes through injustice in order to get justice? Sometimes trials are much worse than the act of crime itself.”
There have been many factual reports by the United Nations on how government forces have used rape as a weapon of war to terrorise civilians. These human rights violations also include forcing women to become sex slaves, while executing the rest of the population left behind.
So why is Natasha placing herself in such a position of risk and danger, with the possibility of death every day? The human rights lawyer resolutely wants to build a better world. “It’s okay if I don’t see the change in the next 10 or 20 years because I understand that change takes time and I’m in it for the long haul. Our work is similar to the female leaders from the past, who have fought hard for everyone to receive an education and voting rights given to us, no matter our gender,” she shares.
Since the pandemic, the 33-year-old has been based in Singapore. In a normal year, she would split her time between Singapore and the Afghan capital Kabul, where crimes of violence against women remain frequent and perpetrators often go unpunished. Despite the global #Metoo movement that has sparked open conversations about sexual assault and accountability, there is still a deeply entrenched culture of patriarchy in Afghanistan. Thus, it’s much harder to hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes against women, and it fuels an endless cycle of gender-biased violence and victim blaming. The need to right these injustices suffered by women there keeps her going back.
Natasha’s interest in the country started during her teenage years when she chanced upon stories written by young girls about their life experiences. “This was during the early 2000s, when the country was the political centre of so much that was going on then.”
In 2005, four years into the Afghanistan war, the then-17-yearold Natasha bought a plane ticket to Kabul without her mother’s knowledge. “That trip was when I realised and decided that I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life, work and energy there.”
But no matter where the cases are based, Natasha shares that one thing is common: the odds of sexual assault survivors being granted a fair trial are close to none. “Survivors of these cases don’t enter the judicial system on a level playing field. In fact, she starts at a serious disadvantage and faces brutal discrimination against her. This prompts the question—do we demand that a person goes through injustice in order to get justice? Sometimes trials are much worse than the act of crime itself.”