Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has seen systematic rape and other forms of sexual violence committed on a massive scale for decades.
Estimates vary, but somewhere between 250,000 and one million women have been raped since the beginning of the armed conflicts in the 1990s. Only a small number of survivors have accessed any form of care, support, or justice, and none have received any form of reparation or acknowledgement of the violence they suffered.
In partnership with the Panzi Foundation, which has been providing holistic support to survivors since 1999, and in collaboration with the Mouvement National des Survivant.es (MNSVS-DRC), we developed an interim reparative measures project in four locations across North-Kivu, South-Kivu, and Central Kasaï provinces. It ended in February 2024.
2020
WORK BEGAN
1,093
SURVIVORS PARTICIPATED
3
LOCATIONS
A total of 1,093 survivors received interim reparative measures, including financial compensation, vocational training, and medical and psychological care over the course of the project.
Overall quality of life ratings almost tripled from the start to the end of the project. 98 per cent of surveyed survivors said the project had changed their lives in some way. Approximately 900 survivors received medical care throughout the project, including 200 who required specialised care for sexual violence-related injuries. More than 5,000 therapy sessions were held over the course of the four years, resulting in reduced rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, among other conditions.
At their request, survivors also co-created positive masculinity workshops to combat patriarchal attitudes in their local communities. By the end of the project, participants said interactions with their families and wider community had improved significantly.
GSF continues to accompany survivors in the DRC, and provided emergency support through the national survivor’s network following renewed conflict in early 2025.
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Survivor centres
Survivors chose to design and inaugurate community centres as their collective interim reparative measure. The survivor centres represent a safe space for them to heal and rebuild their lives. They offer emergency accommodation for survivors and their children, and are hubs for livelihood and literacy activities. Three centres were inaugurated in September 2024, with the fourth and final centre, in Kasaï-Central (Kananga), to open in 2025.
Based on the lessons learnt from the project, GSF continues to advocate for the creation of a survivor-centred national reparation policy. We support survivor-led advocacy efforts with the Solidarité Féminine pour la Paix et le Développement (SOFEPADI) and MNSVS-RDC related to the Kinhasa Declaration signed in 2021. Our aim is for survivors to take charge of their own advocacy, ensuring their views are considered in the national reparation landscape. We also set up the National Alliance for advocacy on reparation and partnered with SOS Information Juridique Multisectorielle for advocacy purposes.
We could see the joy on the faces of the survivors who went to see women gynaecologists. Many survivors did not believe in the possibility of ever being seen by a doctor.
Survivor testimonies from DRC
Martin Kalenda and Georgette Mukuna are survivors from Kasai-Central region. They share their experience of participating in our interim reparative measures project and how it changed their relationship with their child born of conflict-related sexual violence.
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