Are Victim Stories Human Rights Stories? Towards an Ethics and Politics of Listening and Seeing for Victimology

Questions of human rights and the tensions that exist between such rights and the potential for their delivery within criminal justice have been well documented. Nonetheless, the claims made by and on behalf of victims in telling their stories with the advancement in human rights as an intended outcome continue to gather momentum (Meyers, Victims’ Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, New York, 2016). Following in this vein, the work of Stauffer, (Ethical Loneliness: The Injustices of Not Being Heard, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2015) addressing the injustices of not being heard has been telling. Indeed, the emergence of both cultural and narrative criminology/victimology has run parallel with the desire to centre the victim stories. This, however, is not without its problems. Not only does such centring run the risk of glossing the tensions between human rights and criminal justice practices already well established, it also runs the risk of glossing both the ethics and politics underpinning whose voice is listened to, why, when and where. In practical terms, such knowledge claims need to be reflective of time, place and voice.