Democratic Republic of the Congo

Since the start of the project in 2019, there have been 1,038 medical consultations resulting in 45 surgeries for treating long-standing wounds from sexual violence.  

And 555 survivors have had individual psychological counselling sessions. Over 600 people participated in vocational training on topics such as business skills and savings management to optimise their use of compensation and maximise the transformative and sustainable impact of the interim reparative measures.

The planned community centres will serve as a safe haven for survivors and a space for them to share and organise events and activities together.

The impact evaluation for the project, which was conducted by the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement in 2022, found that 98 per cent of survivors felt participating in the project changed their lives in some way. Moreover, the percentage of survivors feeling gossiped about or excluded from their communities on a weekly basis decreased by 64 percentage points throughout the project.

In December 2022, Law 22/065 on the protection and reparation of victims of conflict-related sexual violence and victims of crimes against the peace and security of humanity was adopted. As a result, GSF’s advocacy and technical support in 2023 focused on the implementation of the law. 

In February 2023, the National Advocacy Alliance for Reparations was established following our call to set up a working group on reparations made up of civil society organisations, victims' groups and other key actors. The Alliance has since become a key group in advocating to the FONAREV and the government of DRC by acting as an informal tool for information exchange and advocacy planning. 

Our advocacy activities sought to resolve imprecisions in the law around the definition and determination of victim status and the roles that FONAREV and the judicial system will play in the registration of victims. GSF called for these difficulties to be remedied by the FONAREV so that the legislation follows international obligations and standards, and so that reparations are harmonious with other transitional justice measures enacted in the country.

We built close relations with the Mouvement National des Survivant.es, the Feminine Solidarity for Peace and Development, and SOS Multisector Juridical Information, three partners within the National Alliance for Reparations, in 2023. Our joint work seeks to enhance the technical capacity of survivors, so that they can better participate in the design and implementation of reparation policies.