Gender Justice Video Advocacy Project

Since the beginning of this joint initiative, more than 30 of Women's Initiatives' partners - women's human rights and peace advocates - from the CAR, the DRC, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, and Kyrgyzstan have participated in a series of video advocacy training and subsequently were able to film, conduct interviews, and co-edit the videos. All of the films will be available on the Women's Initiatives website.

•  Our Voices Matter features testimonies of six women victims/survivors of rape and other forms of sexual violence from North Kivu, South Kivu and Province Orientale, Eastern DRC. "Through their interviews, all conducted by local women's rights advocates and partners of the Women's Initiatives, this advocacy film highlights the multiplicity of perpetrators operating in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo..., the lack of accountability for these crimes, and the medical services, psychosocial assistance and economic support urgently needed by victims/survivors. [It is] a call to action to the Congolese Government to provide victims/survivors with the necessary medical and economic assistance, ensure domestic accountability for perpetrators, and increase their cooperation with the ICC. The film also calls upon the international community, especially the United Nations, the African Union and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, to support initiatives to prevent these crimes in the DRC, ensure the protection of women and girls and support ICC prosecutions."
  • Women's Initiatives DRC programmes, in collaboration with local partners, include:
    • "Documentation of sexual and gender-based crimes;
    •  Direct assistance and support initiatives for victims/survivors of sexual and gender-based violence including the establishment of a Transit House and access to medical support;
    •  Advocacy and legal filings before the ICC regarding the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence in Eastern DRC;
    •  Advocacy and monitoring of the implementation of the 2009 Goma Peace Agreements and their impact on the security situation in Eastern DRC;
    •  Monitoring outbreaks of fighting and tracking militia movements;
    • The women’s human rights defenders support programme - to date, we have assisted with the temporary relocation of more than 30 women’s human rights defenders and their families due to threats and harassment from militia;
    • Electoral monitoring, including documenting the participation of women as candidates in provincial elections; and
    • Co-hosting 15 country-based workshops, strategic meetings and events in Province Orientale, North Kivu, South Kivu and Kinshasa for more than 350 participants since 2006."
  • Video screenings include: the 12th Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) Forum in April 2012; a national launch in Kinshasa, DRC, in June 2012 at an event attended by representatives of the Congolese Government, the United Nations, the diplomatic missions, and the media; and a private screening for the Congolese Minister of Justice and Human Rights.

• Our Plea features the testimonies of two young women who were abducted by the LRA in the South-Eastern provinces of the CAR. "Interviewed by local partner JUPEDEC [Jeunesse Unie pour la Protection de l'Environnement et le Developpement Communautaire], in Our Plea Léa and Joëlle describe their experiences within the LRA, their lives following their return to their communities and their efforts to start over." This video is filmed as call to action: 1) to the ICC to open investigations into LRA crimes committed in the CAR and 2) to the CAR Government to provide urgent medical, psychosocial, and economic assistance for the rehabilitation and reintegration of LRA victims/survivors, especially girls and women, including those returning with children born as a result of rape and sexual enslavement.
  • Our Plea was launched in The Hague, Netherlands in May 2012 with a private screening for the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC. The video was also shown to representatives of States Parties to the ICC in June 2012. Plans for screenings of this video include officials of the CAR government, the UN, and the ICC.

Conflict, Rights, Women

"Five of the six countries selected for the project have situations under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). "They are also countries where the Women's Initiatives has ...domestic peace and justice programmes and ...partnerships with a large number of grassroots women's rights and peace advocates, networks, and organisations.

According Women's Initiatives, it is estimated that millions have died as a consequence of the protracted insecurity in the Eastern DRC. It is also estimated that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been the target of rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence since the beginning of the conflict. "The scale of the ongoing violence in Eastern DRC, including the widespread commission of sexual and gender-based crimes, along with limited availability of medical and other support services and economic opportunities, as well as the stigma associated with sexual violence crimes, contributes to a culture of lawlessness, impunity, poverty and trauma."

In the CAR, it is estimated that hundreds of women and girls have been abducted and forcibly recruited by the LRA in attacks against the civilian population in the CAR. "In 2005, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony, leader of the LRA, and four other senior LRA commanders for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Northern Uganda".