Sexual & Gender-Based and Post-ConflicT Reparations

This web page is funded by a SSHRC Connections Grant (2020-2021). It documents and archives data gathered during the Survivors’ Hearing on Reparations for forced marriage and related sexual violence in conflict situations in Africa held 22-24 November 2021, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is pervasive in all armed conflicts, regardless of their location or nature. It includes rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriages largely perpetrated against women but also targeting youth, men, trans and gender non-conforming folks, and people with disabilities.

Reparations and other forms of redress are central to sexual and gender-based projects that are attempting to build a more just world. Yet survivors and practitioners face obstacles in seeking reparations at different scales: the national, international, and civil society itself. Many states and multilateral institutions have not centralized policies addressing these forms of violence post-conflict, even though the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) suggests the inability to implement reparations is like a “permission or encouragement” to commit such violence.

With the participation of survivors from 12 African countries and several community-based organizations in Africa, the grant-funded research that culminated in the Survivors’ Hearing enabled qualitative and focused research exploring what reparations and redress mean to women, men, youth, persons with disabilities and their communities, especially those who have been subjected to and/or participated in different forms of violence in conflicts, in 12 Arican countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Kenya, and Mali.

Building on the CSiW’s SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant (2015-2020) on forced marriage in conflict situations, Anna M. Agathangelou and Veronique Bourget conceptualized a people’s tribunal and working together with the rest of the CSiW team, Global Survivors Fund, and SOFEPADI co-organized the Survivors’ Hearing. The Hearing was the first of its kind to focus on SGBV in 12 countries. It brought together multiple stakeholders and participants – survivors, activists, NGO representatives, experts, and policymakers. It paved the way for other initiatives directed at supporting survivor-centred and gendered sensitive reparative practices, considering survivor-based advocacy approaches and identifying current gaps in the enforcement of judgments on reparations.

One of the key outcomes of the Survivors’ Hearing was the survivors’ production of the Kinshasa Declaration. The Declaration highlights how reparations centralize survivors in the transformation of their societies and livelihoods and act as a mechanism to disrupt ongoing distributional violences and injustices through conflict and war. Equally pressing for survivors and formal spheres of power is how to debate, prioritize, and create SGBV reparative projects without subjecting victims to ongoing violence including capture of their power.

Stakeholders and participants requiring access to the data on this webpage are asked to email us at genderbasedreparations@gmail.com or contact us through the form below.

Research and Resources

Bibliography

It is Time: Survivor’s Hearing on Reparations

International Reports on Reparations

Reports on Post-Conflict Reparations in Africa