Ending Impunity : ACORD Launches the Regional Gender Programme

"The hidden war crimes: Challenging the impunity on sexual and gender-based violence in countries of the international conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)".   On 6th April 2009, ACORD launched the regional Gender Project in Nairobi during an event attended by regional women's rights protection groups, civil society and diplomatic representatives. The gender programme is being implemented in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. -----------------------------------------------------------------

The main goal of this project is to create effective gender justice systems in the region through local, national and regional accountability mechanisms. To achieve this goal, ACORD will focus on the development of comprehensive data and research.

The culture of impunity in relation to sexual abuse and violation of girls and women is rooted in the normalised violation of women in pre conflict situations. Sexual and gender-based violence does not only take place during situation of conflict in war situations but is practiced when and where legal frameworks and institutions are functional.

Gender and human rights experts from Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, the DRC and Kenya met in Nairobi April 6th to mark the official launch of the programme and deepen analysis by exploring the gaps in tackling SGBV in the region.

According to Meryem Aslan of UNIFEM East Africa, one in every three women experience some form of violence in their lifetime, while sexual and gender-based violence remains the highest likelihood to lead to death
than HIV/AIDS or Malaria, for a woman. She appealed to the participants to approach the issue of SGBV as a long-term struggle as opposed to being tackled as an emergency. That way, most of the secondary and related
aspects are also effectively addressed such as social intolerance.

In Burundi, 19% of 1,575 women surveyed by the United Nations Population Fund in 2004 were raped while 40% had heard about or witnessed the rape of a minor. In Northern Uganda’s Pader district, where 300 of the 412 gender-based violence cases reported last year dealt with rape, survivors are unable to access Post Exposure Prophylaxis.

"The challenge for us is to be able to recognise the enormity of the problem and not become part of the perpetrators. We must take courage and do what needs to be done at the right time. Furthermore, we must avoid the temptation of seeking visibility by riding on the backs of the victims", said Josephine Odera of UNIFEM Central Africa. In her address, she highlighted the relevance of political commitment, constitutional capacity, community roles, responsibility and coordination and visibility as key pillars that ought to be safeguarded ted the participants to step up advocacy to end impunity for SGBV by referring to the Chinese proverb 'Be not afraid of making slow progress; be afraid of standing still'.

The launch was followed by a 2-day training Judicial Audit training held in Nairobi between the 7-8 April where ACORD staff and partners from the five countries were trained on methodological tools to assist in gathering data and analyzing legal precedents, gaps and areas of convergence within the legal framework formal and informal in the five project countries. The audit which is a core activity in the first quarter of ACORD’s MDG3 project is geared towards
"Establishing the state of play in legislation and the intersecting sectors of health, the police and the media in terms of handling cases of violence against women and much more so during situations of conflict.

The ability of legal regimes to be effective in situations of conflict is paramount to testing their efficacy during peaceful times. We are saying this is a societal issue and we must target all sectors in order to end this problem successfully," said Awino Okech, ACORD’s Gender and Conflict Thematic Manager.

During her earlier visit to Buta, in the Bas Uele region of the DRC, she was dismayed to observe that DRC justice system was non existent generally but totally lacking in Buta. She questioned the logic behind sensitising communities about the new DRC law on sexual violence and advocate for bodily integrity when it lacks structures to deal with perpetrators once they were identified and denounced by the community. ACORD has been co-implementing 142 community based projects in the area as part of a joint programme with the Ministry of Planning and World Bank.

ACORD’s interventions in the war torn Great Lakes Region for the last 27 years places the organization in a very unique and fundamentally influential position to play a primary role in instituting the necessary systems and structures to ensure justice for women and girls violated during and after civil wars.