As someone heading the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, you're both
in a position where you have the confidence of the states and you really need to work
with that confidence and yet you have to tackle the many ways in which states exercise impunity
as we know consistently and systematically and how does that sort of, how does a person
in that position really navigate these different currents where you have to talk to them, construct
ively and yet hold them accountable and then be subject to very vicious attacks as we
saw in the case of Gaza and Sri Lanka.
So if you could sort of take us back to those contexts and what is really that you drew upon
because that was quite outstanding those two moments in which you stood up for the cause
and yet you did become the center of criticism by some governments.
Well, I'm very happy to be here and particularly holding this conversation with the room full
of PhDs and potential PhDs, why is that important?
Because you are on the cusp of addressing new and emerging issues.
So throughout my life, I found myself doing many things that were done for the first time.
No change happens, especially in well-established societies such as the United Kingdom, such
as India, but in South Africa we had an opportunity, a new democracy to make that change.
Let me just refer to how you introduced me about rape and sexual violence against women.
You're quite right, they were always treated as collateral damage.
In fact, one of the senior European, he was a judge also, he was part of the judgment
writing team and he said to me, let's just give these women a sentence or two and drop
that.
So there was no charge sheet alleging rape and sexual violence or prosecute.
There's no definition in international law because it was never prosecuted.
And none of these issues were addressed to us by council.
Usually judges take the lead from what's addressed in the courtroom.
So that's the interesting thing, where did I pick this up from the witnesses?
Who wanted to tell us what had happened?
So it's not merely joining a dialogue, it's for the very first time rape being defined
and it's gender neutral and it doesn't, I mean it's not a body part definition of penetration.
The definition has been adopted in the Rome statute and by many countries, including the
constitutional court in South Africa.
So it's a conviction of rape as genocide.
So much more serious, nobody can go back on that.
But thank you for that introduction.
Your question is really, well how did I make the switch from being a judge who thinks he
or she is almighty and can tell people what to do or can even tell them to stop talking?
So I had to become an advocate and I think it took me two years to learn.
The first thing I did is looked at this mandate and realized this is a very special mandate.
Even the Secretary General said to me he's politically constrained on the things he could
raise but this mandate given to the High Commissioner for Human Rights is to promote and protect
all rights of all people all over the world.
So it's a very wide mandate plus the right to development.
And so I looked at the mandate and did the maximum I could.
What did the ambassadors say to me?
It's true I've been called terrible names.
She asked me to look at Google images, my pictures and many were superimposed with the
face of Osama bin Laden.
So there are a lot of people there who don't understand human rights.
So must that get to you now?
Yeah, the Syrian ambassador called me a lunatic.
Someone else said this whole human rights system is a monster that they created because
they didn't expect it to go so far.
I visited 78 countries.
Western states actually were surprised, including this country, were surprised that I was raising
human rights issues in their backyard.
They said I should be focusing on distant countries where thousands of people are killed,
in other words, the developing countries.
So donors also had that attitude.
What ambassadors said about me is it's because you are a judge, you listen.
So people respect that you hear about and you understand the point of view.
And in that conversational tone, you can set out international standard and values that
they signed up to.
Who created all these treaties with standards and values?
It states.
So all my lessons in life were learned when other women opened my eyes.
And so with seeing very many women, I realized that they're just victims in this situation.
So a woman who was pregnant and she was working at a hospital and they wouldn't give her leave
to go and have the prenatal checkups.
So I went to the hospital where they all gathered huge hall and said this is what I wanted.
This is what I learned about your hospital.
So it's learning something and using the opportunity you have to expose it.
So I was the first to put on television my client who had been beaten up very badly before
she came to me.
She came to me because he wasn't paying child support.
She had these huge gashes across her face.
So the husband had slashed her and her six-year-old daughter picked up a tissue to wipe the blood
of her face.
The father said to the daughter, just leave her alone, let her die.
So before she came to me, he had already been sentenced and served.
Now I'm attending to the child support.
So her struggle is still going on.
So I called in the TV which is totally forbidden in my system because lawyers mustn't advertise
their work.
Now, of course, everybody does following the American example of it.
So we are not supposed to go public and speak out and so on.
So that's the first.
I had the TV camera in and they filmed her story and out it went and the media called
me the next day to say their switchbots were all jammed because of public phoning.
They were so shocked about it.
So you learn something, you do something about it, and then you help not her but a whole
lot of women.
I started a law practice in Durban and some of the male lawyers said she's very presumptuous.
A woman starting a law practice is not going to last, but I had little choice.
I went from law firm to law firm who were almost all white law firms.
And firstly, they said, no, we can't take you on because we cannot have a situation
where a white secretary has to take instructions from a black person.
So that's race.
And the class discrimination is where they said, yes, well, what kind of business will
you bring?
Do you have a father who's in business?
What the most hurtful was, I was newly married and they said, yeah, what if you fall pregnant?
So pregnancy is such a bar to entering any profession, including politics.
When the change came in South Africa, one of the appointments was of a 35-year-old woman
of color as a judge.
Her name is Leonor Tehran and she was asked in the public questioning, well, you have
small children, so how are you going to manage as a judge?
And she said exactly as the other judges manage who have small grandchildren.
So great answer.
So it's not all only about putting women in decision-making positions because unfortunately
the few who get the feel they have to adapt to the male world and act like men.
Oh, we shouldn't shed tears, we can't dress as we wish, we have to wear the male suit.
No reference to you here.
So no, that's your choice, wear what you want.
And of course, there were all kinds of, and still are, all of the world, males imposing
restrictions on what women should be wearing.
We couldn't wear trousers in the courtroom when we were lawyers, for instance.
So they have to have a human rights outlook.
They have to understand what's it like for people.
So if you take rape and sexual violence, it's bad, it's a crime, it has to stop, but there
is an attitude out there from men.
It sees women again, it's always their issues.
And they all feel that they under attack, the men feel.
So I would bring out, you know, that men and boys were raped more in Bosnia than women.
And then you get their interest.
So what am I saying here, is zero in on the perspective and interest of the people you
are addressing.
It's school children, children, I addressed elementary school in Canada, because I was
asked to.
So then you address children's issues, and they understand that they are all right, but
there are terrible things going on there, and they need to care about this.
I have thanked people wherever I went for supporting the struggle against apartheid.
You see, and people, I mean, in many parts of the world, people identify with that.
They saw institutionalized racism as bad.
So how come they collectively acted on it?
Whether I'm in Colombia or, you know, Latin American state or here or in Europe, there's
always somebody in that audience who says, yes, I was a child, I stopped eating South
African oranges.
So zero in on and get that opening so we can engage them.
