Sexual violence in civil conflict: An overview of Africa's response

Furaha Joy Sekai Saungweme & Megan Cistully

Sexual Violence in Civil Conflict: An Overview of Africa's Response

Conflict-related sexual violence has devastating and harmful effects on survivors’ physical, sexual, reproductive, and mental health, and destroys the social fabric of communities. Lack of respect for international law, arms proliferation, political interests, economic and national security factors are but some of the underlying layers of civil conflict and which invariably result in systemic and widespread sexual violence of women as a strategy.

Sexual violence has been recorded in many armed conflicts across Africa. Our workshop will focus on case studies from in Sierra Leone, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR) and Ethiopia. UN reports and international courts have provided clarity as to how sexual violence may constitute an instrument, tool or weapon of war. “When acts of sexual violence are linked to a military or political objective and intended to serve a strategic aim of the conflict, they amount to the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.”

We will highlight the following.

• Due to conflict, supportive social networks usually weaken or collapse
• Forced displacement/forced recruitment/forced labour
• Absence of social services such as medical, legal, law enforcement.
• Breakdown of infrastructure

We will expound on the general barriers to justice

• Local courts are located far from many rural communities
• Court fees are beyond the means of poor civilians.
• Stigmatization

Proposed workshop methodology

Introduction

• Overview
• Code of conduct (listening to and respecting others’ views, possibility of leaving the room if not comfortable, etc.)

1. Film/documentary: Congo Kinshasa: the hidden battlefield (film choice subject to change)
   1. Brainstorming on the issues touched upon in the film/documentary
2. Presentation
   1. The issue of sexual violence and international humanitarian law
   2. The African regional system.
   3. The Regional response

• Questions and discussion Break and informal discussion

1. Case studies
2. Based on the African regional responses to sexual violence in armed conflict is there a clearer direction as to who or which entities under international or national law is better placed to respond to atrocities? Which system is best suited to address the issue of reparations for survivors of sexual violence? Who should bring the claim? The victims or the State?
3. Introduction to the cases and questions
4. Group discussion (three groups)
5. Group report and discussion

Furaha Joy Sekai Saungweme is a lawyer, and the founder of Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative (AESHI), a law reform and social movement project which seeks to create regional dialogue on sexual harassment for national impact and which calls for a Regional Law/Protocol on Sexual Harassment for Africa. She is a Georgetown Law LLM Alumni during which period she served as the LL.M. Advisor for the Georgetown Journal on International Law and developed her thesis, “Sexual Harassment in the Pan African Parliament” which she presented  at the White House (Eisenhower Executive Office Building) in April 2024 before the White House Gender Policy Council. Furaha-Joy is the Lead editor of the #Firstofitskind book Sexual Harassment and the Law in Africa: Country and Regional Perspectives. This groundbreaking publication led to an invite from Voice of America (VOA) Our Voices 638 to discuss the problem of sexual harassment in Africa as well as the book, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiZpzGgjYV0  

Furaha-Joy is Co-Director of the Gender Justice and Harassment Working Group at the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law, Co-Editor in Chief of the BCCE E-Journal and a Board Member of the FemIDEAS, Decolonizing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education Project, based at the University of Westminster, United Kingdom. She has authored peer reviewed academic papers on gender, democracy and human rights in Africa and is an active member of notable international networks including International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) as well as the International Conference on Legislation and Law Reform (ILEGIS) which focuses on how laws are written in the United States and around the world at the international, national, and subnational levels.

Megan Cistulli is pursuing a Juris Doctor at the University of Chicago Law School and a Master of Business Administration at Booth School of Business. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, she later served as a postgraduate research fellow at Berkeley Law's Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law. She co-authored a chapter in Sexual Harassment and the Law in Africa: Country and Regional Perspectives and consults for the Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative. Driven by her passion for equity in education, she co-founded Technology & Entrepreneurship Ladder, Inc. in Nairobi, Kenya, to empower students and foster innovation.