Citation
Executive summary
This report explores the unintended side-effects of sexual violence assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the high prevalence of sexual violence in Congo and the need to eradicate it is unquestioned, this research was initiated to address the growing discomfort about the effectiveness of programmes against sexual violence among staff members of involved agencies and Congolese actors more generally. The report concerns the unintended consequences of responses to sexual violence. These consequences risk undermining progress in addressing sexual violence, including the work to stop impunity, to raise awareness of sexual violence and to provide services offered to raped women and girls in DRC. An increasing number of people begin to refer to sexual violence assistance as a fond de commerce (business). As this might erode the Congolese constituency for combatting sexual violence, it is argued that sexual violence assistance needs to be reformed to become more effective within the Congolese context.
The research focuses on how actors that provide sexual violence assistance interpret the problem, how this translates into interventions, and the negative side-effects that are observed. The judicial component of sexual violence assistance receives particular attention.
The research was conducted by one Dutch and two Congolese researchers under the auspices of the Disaster Studies Programme of Wageningen University. It took place in North and South Kivu in September-November 2011. It is based on 58 semi-structured interviews with UN agencies, International NGOs, state actors and representatives of the legal system, and an analysis of 40 legal cases of sexual violence from six jurisdictions in South Kivu.
The conclusions are based on research focusing on North and South Kivu, where most of the funds for sexual violence are made available. They do not apply to other provinces of the DRC. The research relates to the ensemble of interventions and examines perceptions and societal responses to these interventions. The substantiation of the trends observed and the recognition of diversity in objectives and quality of individual programmes require additional research at programme level. The research has been limited to the DRC and can therefore not be understood as valid for other countries. Additional research would be required in other countries where (war-related) sexual violence has triggered international responses, such as Northern Uganda.
The objective of the research is to understand how actors in the field of sexual violence assistance interpret the problem and define intervention strategies, and how these programmes trigger certain adverse societal responses.
These questions have been examined in four areas:
The framing of sexual violence in DR Congo.
The ways the understanding of violence is translated into programmes; identification of the activities; ways in which beneficiaries are identified; identification of the collaboration mechanisms and funding schemes.
The accumulated and unintended effects of medical, social and economic assistance to victims of sexual violence.
The accumulated and unintended effects of judicial sexual violence assistance.
