Sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Report Abuse in the Public Health Care Response

Insecurity Insight is monitoring reported incidents of sexual violence by conflict actors, law enforcement agencies and affecting IDPs and refugees in the DRC. Regular updates are available through the Monthly News Brief on Sexual Violence.

The recent revelations of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by aid workers working in the 10th Ebola response in the Eastern part of the DRC has again demonstrated that sexual exploitation and abuse is widespread yet under reported in humanitarian emergencies.

Sexual exploitation of Congolese women working with the Ebola response is a concern. We know that this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg and we believe that survivors deserve a safe and secure reporting platform where they can report and share their experience.

With the emergence of the 11th Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 crisis we know that there are risks of the same patterns continuing to occur in public health emergencies. We are currently developing an online reporting platform to empower survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse to record their experience safely and securely. Read our recommendations on sexual violence reporting.

If you are working in any public health response in the DRC and have experienced sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid response, this reporting platform is for you.

The platform is in development state. If you are interested get in touch and help us test the platform.

We know that reporting sexual exploitation and abuse is difficult and often survivors confide in a trusted intermediary. Therefore, if you are a trusted supported to a survivor of sexual exploitation and abuse and wish to report their experience on their behalf then you can do so here.

Quick links

Sexual Violence in aid & humanitarian settings

Monthly News Brief

Resources

Report Abuse Aid

Report Abuse DRC

Mailing List

Listening to survivors

Our reporting platform gives survivors the opportunity to record their story.
It may provide some survivors with closure and comfort. Reporting should be an empowering process kept in the hands of those directly affected. This reporting platform and associated materials have been developed in cooperation with survivors. The platform has purposely been set up so that survivors should only provide the details that they are comfortable with. If one does not wish to share specific details, then those questions can be left unanswered or blank. The ability to share and report is in your hands.

Reporting should be an empowering process kept in the hands of those directly affected.
Reporting through this platform will not result in an investigation – administrative or criminal. There is an option for details to be provided to our partner organisation, but this decision is left in the hands of the survivor. All identifying details, unless requested to be disclosed by a survivor, are kept confidential.
We are using KOBO toolbox by HHI for the reporting mechanism. The data is securely stored on servers run by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the United States. We download reported information regularly.

In advance, we thank any survivor wishing to raise their voice, share their experiences, and speak out. It is a courageous act, and we thank you for your time.

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