Mali
Mali has been marked by conflict and a climate of violence and insecurity for over a decade. From 2012 to 2013, fighters from several groups including Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and Ansar Dine, made recurrent and in some cases systematic use of sexual violence.
In 2022, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Lawyers Without Borders Canada warned of a resurgence of such violence, while acknowledging the difficulty to quantify the scale of the violations due to a volatile security context and the discrimination faced by survivors.
Following the GRS launch in Gao and Bamako in 2024, another two launch events took place in 2025 to highlight the various recommendations of the report. The study emphasised the State’s responsibility to ensure the authority in charge of administrative reparations is functioning, that funds for reparations are available, and that they are allocated effectively and transparently.
Additional launch events were held in Mopti and Timbuktu, which are among the regions most heavily impacted by the conflict since 2012. Survivors were directly involved in publicly presenting the study and discussing its findings. The Association des Juristes Maliennes (AJM) oversaw the Mopti launch and accompanied survivors who took part in the various activities, while Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF) did the same in Timbuktu.
Project partners
Association des Juristes Maliennes (AJM)
Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF)
2021
In both locations, a pre-event session took place with survivors involved in the study to co-create their role in the public launches. Survivors organised performances highlighting the GRS recommendations, and also took to the stage in front of local authorities to ask for the direct involvement of survivors in any future reparation process, as well as full transparency from the government.
For the Timbuktu launch, survivors organised a panel discussion to share their stories of resilience and present the GRS to the governor. In Mopti, local authorities took to the stage following a theatre performance by survivors, expressing solidarity with them and pledging to convey their requests to the highest State authorities. At the end, survivors presented them with a Malian flag and a sculpture of the scales of justice, to represent their ongoing commitment to justice and to serve as sources of inspiration for the government.
We, the survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, place our full trust in you as we submit to you the advocacy requests set out in this report. In this document, you will understand the hardships we have had to endure, from our villages of origin to the present day. Our children have also suffered as a result of our status...we dare to hope that this message will reach its final destination with the expected outcomes.
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