At a strategy meeting, sexual violence survivors define goals of the global movement

Survivors of sexual violence are moving forward with the creation of a platform to speak out. At a strategy meeting in The Hague in early February, women who have experienced sexual violence in conflict discussed concrete goals they want to achieve together as a global movement.

They identified reparations as a need that all of the survivors have in common. The members of the survivor movement will work together at the international level to make reparations more accessible.

Moreover, they expressed their desire for more recognition. Sexual violence crimes committed in wars are often excluded from history books and receive little attention. The global survivor movement decided to fight for more recognition for the plight of survivors.

In particular, the women expressed their wish to have an international day of sexual violence survivors that would enable them to commemorate the victims of these crimes.

Towards a global survivor movement

After an initial meeting of sexual violence survivors in Geneva in 2017, the participants met again last week in The Hague to formalize goals and discuss concrete strategies.

At the strategy meeting, women from Bosnia, Colombia, Congo, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Guinea, Burundi, Uganda and Liberia exchanged their experiences in order to learn from each other.

We facilitate the creation of the global survivor movement by providing a forum to meet and exchange ideas.

Read more about our project to build a global survivor movement.

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported about the meeting. Read the article here.

Before the meeting, we spoke to the radio show Dutchbuzz on DenHaagFM about the survivor meeting. Listen to the interview here.