Notes from briefing with SRSG DRC Alan Doss

6 April 2008

The meeting began with an introduction of UWaN – its mission, membership, activities and successes.

Mr. Doss opened by stating that the issue of sexual violence in DRC is greater than the UN or MONUC. Its depth and severity requires a lot of work and broad engagement from many stakeholders. He emphasized that sexual violence is not just specific to the DRC or the eastern Congo, or even Africa but that it is world-wide phenomenon.

He noted the extreme correlation between widespread violence against women and girls and conflict. The current situation in DRC has been triggered by the presence and nature of the armed groups and the presence of large numbers of security forces. In North Kivu (North East DRC) there are over 20 different armed groups plus 40-50,000 armed men with minimal discipline. The traditional societal norms as well as law and order have collapsed.

The 1994 war in Rwanda created huge dislocations and societal breakdown. This exacerbated the already fractured and contending tribal groups leading to general acceptability of violence which has perpetrated further violence. Army indiscipline stemming from its make up of various militias who are often unpaid and supported has further aggravated the situation.

Mr. Doss noted the important focus on the victims but emphasized that not enough is known about the background and motives of the perpetrators and stated that both victims and perpetrators need to be bought back into society. He suggested that with the breakdown of traditional society young males who become child soldiers gain raw power which they would not normally experience. This results in the horrific, mindless violence from the men and boys with the enslaved girls often being drawn into the violence - as it is the only life they know. He noted that some of the most brutal commanders have been child soldiers.

Mr. Doss said that stakeholders must now move from hand-wringing to the implementation of practical actions to combat the sexual violence. The President of DRC and others must create a strong Congolese voice on the issue. Other actions must include the recognition that without better control of the armed groups, the issue of impunity will remain unaddressed. During the disarming and dismantling of armed groups civilians populations must be protected against reprisal rape. The FARDC must be supported with minimum rations, water, shelter and pay to ensure discipline. The police must be returned to rural and remote areas and their capacity significantly strengthened with gender friendly police forces and stations. He suggested the viability of police stations with separate entrances and cells for women to make them feel safer and thus encourage them to report abuse.

Strengthening the judicial system including its accessibility to victims is also needed. Legal systems and the rule of law need to be established or re-established to ensure that accessibility and affordability.

Finally education and communication should be strengthened working through a broad range of players including faith-based organizations, government, NGOs and civil society.

Mr. Doss stressed that the UN and MONUC’s behavior must remain above reproach and emphasized that the UN has moved to train UN and MONUC staff to ensure understanding of the issue. He said they are provided specific knowledge and education as needed an as part of their peacekeeping training. He would like to see all UN peacekeeping troops and police sensitized to the issue before they arrive in DRC. This is a huge task with 35,000 MONUC military and civilian staff rotating through DRC annually.

Mr. Doss handed out the following documents: Comprehensive Strategy on Combating Sexual Violence in DRC - Executive Summary (18 March 2009) and Update No. 3 Combating Sexual Violence in DRC (28 March 2009) both prepared by the office of the Senior Sexual Violence Advisor and Coordinator in DRC.

A key area of the Comprehensive Strategy is to facilitate better coordination between the many different groups currently addressing sexual violence in the DRC. He highlighted the need to mitigate the risks to successful implementation of the action plans by:

• Fighting impunity, strengthening the law enforcement and justice sectors and addressing economic root causes of human rights violations
• Ensuring that the army is better vetted and that the worst perpetrators of sexual violence are weeded out
• Reminding people that sexual violence is not particularly an African issue.

During question time Mr Doss stated that capacity building of the justice system was essential as it is currently very weak. It needs to be rebuilt, made more accessible and the judiciary adequately paid to minimize corruption and provided a measure of security to ensure their safety. This would be needed before considering a “fast-track” system for sexual violence should be considered. He stated that there was a correlation between armed conflict and the spread of HIV and that this was high on the UN Country Team’s agenda.

He recommended that UWaN should keep advocating for change and push for real, practical outcomes from the various Security Council resolutions (1325 and 1820) rather than just reports and meetings. He emphasized that this is not a hopeless case and that progress was being made.

He noted our disappointment that the SG while recently in DRC had not been able to visit Panzi hospital. He suggested that this was due to logistical problems (timing for other meetings and the weather) but that there are other institutions doing good work and that the SG’s visit to Heal Africa impressed upon the SG the severity of the issue.

AS/SV