Publications

This shadow report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), for consideration of the combined 6th and 7th Report of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), focuses on the issue of access to justice for women victims of sexual violence committed in the context of the conflict in the DRC. It highlights a series of priority concerns related to access to justice and includes recommendations for each of those concerns, in order to assist the Committee in its examination of the DRC’s report and its dialogue with the DRC delegation.

From 13-14 April 2012, in the margins of the NGO Forum preceding the 51st Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), lawyers and other experts met in Kololi, The Gambia, to discuss victims’ experiences of accessing justice and seeking reparation. Participants included lawyers and experts from Algeria, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Participants explored challenges and potential solutions in accessing justice at the national, (sub-) regional and international levels. Their presentations and discussions form the basis of this paper.

This discussion paper was submitted by IBUKA and it’s 15 member organisations, the Survivors Fund (SURF) and REDRESS to the government of Rwanda in October 2012 to help progress discussions on reparation (in particular in the form of rehabilitation,  restitution and compensation) for survivors of the Rwandan genocide survivor organisations and other stakeholders. It is based on a series of interviews carried out for five years with survivors, Rwandan government officials and representatives of national and international human rights organisations on the issue of reparation as well as workshops and seminars. It also examines reparation mechanisms established elsewhere in the aftermath of conflict and/or in response to systematic human rights abuses, focusing in particular on South Africa, Sierra Leone and Morocco.

The purpose of this report is to explore the challenges that witnesses face in giving testimony about crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide and to assess the strength of the various processes and mechanisms established to ensure their protection. Through examining some of their experiences and the challenges they encountered, this report seeks to identify patterns and trends that underline the need for reform in the area of victim and witness protection. The basis of this report is an analysis of relevant Rwandan and ICTR legal documents, and individual interviews and focus groups conducted in March and April 2012 with sixty Rwandan prosecution and defense witnesses, Rwandan government officials, Rwandan and ICTR judicial personnel, as well as civil society actors and previous fieldwork conducted by REDRESS and other researchers.

Sexual violence is the most pervasive form of violence in many of the conflict-ridden countries in Africa and continues to remain so. The overall purpose of this manual is to eliminate the knowledge gap about strategies women may adopt to seek justice for sexual violence. It is also to encourage women to use and exhaust avenue of justice within their domestic legal system and, if the systems fail them to explore brining complains under regional or international mechanisms. This manual examines the different legal options available to a victim/survivor of sexual violence or rights group on her behalf.    

This report summarizes access to justice issues raised by participants during a workshop organised by REDRESS and FIDA-Uganda on conflict-related gender-based violence in Kampala, Uganda, in April 2012.  The workshop brought together lawyers from seven selected countries including Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda who participated in training on definitions of gender-based crimes (rape and sexual slavery) and analysis of justice mechanisms available at the sub-regional, regional and international levels to provide victims reparations. This report includes recommendations with a view to improving access to justice for all victims of gender crimes.