Pathways to Justice and Accountability for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations from the Frontlines

Author: Jess Keller

Despite more than two decades of international efforts to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), perpetrators from Sudan to Myanmar to the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to commit atrocities with impunity. In conflict situations worldwide, sexual violence is increasingly used as a weapon of war by combatants, decimating societies, fueling displacement, and violating core principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. The consequences for individuals and communities are devastating, with impacts that reverberate across generations and undermine peace, security, and global stability.

CRSV encompasses a range of abuses, including rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, sexual torture and mutilation, and any other form of sexual violence that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. Since 2000, preventing and responding to CRSV has become a key pillar of the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. There is widespread rhetorical consensus that CRSV poses a threat to both individual and collective security, and impedes post-conflict recovery and sustainable peace. Yet, despite increased political attention and five subsequent UN resolutions explicitly concerning CRSV, implementation lags far behind commitments.

Sexual violence remains a silent crime with an estimated 80 percent of cases in conflict settings going unreported. Survivors face significant barriers to accessing life-saving medical and psychological services amidst active hostilities, especially those who experience multiple and overlapping forms of discrimination such as LGBTQ+ individuals, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, members of diaspora communities, and refugees or internally displaced persons. Deficits in training and specialized expertise, weak state capacity, and social stigmatization discourage survivors from speaking out about their abuses, which precludes many from seeking justice and redress. Even when laws and policies are in place to prevent and respond to CRSV, a resurgence of hostilities can fuel renewed patterns of sexual and gender-based violence after war—including domestic violence—that perpetuate insecurity.

Russia’s unprovoked full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine has laid bare these troubling trends. Since February 2022, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General has recorded more than 149,000 instances of war crimes by Russian forces, including the forced deportation of nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented 376 cases of CRSV against 262 men, 104 women, 10 girls, and 2 boys in temporarily occupied territories, during house raids, and as a method of torture against detainees, though the full extent of CRSV remains unknown. Russia’s deliberate use of sexual violence and its targeting of civilian and healthcare infrastructure reflects broader patterns of CRSV that are endemic in humanitarian crises and conflict zones worldwide.

Amid these atrocities, there is growing momentum for accountability. Concerted efforts by the international community, government officials, prosecutors, and civil society have enabled the timely documentation and investigation of war crimes in Ukraine. Landmark court cases in the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have opened pathways for prosecuting CRSV within national frameworks. Across these efforts, women and women-led organizations have been vital first responders for survivors—providing essential services, advocating for legal support, rebuilding communities, and facilitating individual and collective healing. Now more than ever, coordinated solutions are needed to support their work and dismantle the culture of impunity that obstructs dignity and justice for survivors.

In September 2024, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) convened leaders from Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Colombia to share lessons learned for responding to the global scourge of CRSV. Drawing on their insights from across conflict settings, this report presents actionable policy recommendations for the international community and key stakeholders to hold perpetrators accountable, meet survivor needs, and follow through on their commitments to deliver justice.

Key Policy Recommendations

1. Provide Urgent Survivor-Centered Medical and Psychosocial Services
   • Provide Timely and Holistic Support: Deliver immediate survivor-centered assistance during armed conflict, including health care, legal assistance, and psychosocial support that addresses intersectional needs.
   • Integrate and Innovate Services: Establish survivor support centers, secure digital platforms, and integrated “one-stop” relief centers in collaboration with civil society to deliver safe and confidential care.
   • Monitor and Improve Delivery: Develop robust, evidence-based monitoring frameworks to assess the delivery of CRSV services and ensure interventions meet survivors’ priorities.
2. Co-Create Evidence-Collection and Documentation Processes
   • Design Survivor-Led Protocols: Engage survivors, frontline organizations, legal experts, and war crimes prosecutors to co-design standardized protocols for documenting CRSV, aligned with ‘Do No Harm’ principles and the Murad Code.
   • Develop Secure and Ethical Data Practices: Develop clear protocols for data collection and sharing that prioritize survivor consent, identity protection, and data security.
   • Conduct Robust Trainings: Conduct trauma-informed and gender-responsive CRSV trainings for health workers, community leaders, police officers, judges, prosecutors, and qualified psychologists to minimize the risk of re-traumatization.
   • Bolster Local Capacity and Funding: Enhance capacity through direct flexible and sustained funding to civil society organizations, and particularly women-led organizations, who are leading evidence-collection and documentation efforts.
3. Challenge Shame and Transform Stigma
   • Amplify Survivor Voices: Promote public acknowledgment of CRSV survivors through official statements, exhibitions, media campaigns, and memorial events.
   • Leverage Community Leadership: Partner with trusted religious and traditional leaders to challenge societal norms and stereotypes surrounding CRSV survivors.
   • Target Outreach to Men and Boys: Tailor communication strategies to reach male survivors and ensure men and boys are addressed, acknowledged, and included in all CRSV interventions.
   • Deploy Community-Level Interventions: Develop locally-driven models for shifting stigmatizing attitudes and supporting survivors’ reintegration, such as art-based therapies, community counseling programs, and raising awareness through media and documentaries.
4. Pursue Criminal Justice and Accountability
   • Enhance Justice Mechanisms: Strengthen the capacity of national and subnational justice institutions to prosecute perpetrators of CRSV, ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law principles and standardized procedures for investigations and prosecutions.
   • Prohibit Amnesty for Crimes: Prohibit amnesty provisions in CRSV cases and reinforce state obligations to international law, including under CEDAW and the WPS Agenda, in all peace negotiations and transitional justice processes.
   • Utilize Sanctions Regimes: Explicitly list sexual violence as a standalone criterion in sanctions regimes and include targeted sanctions for perpetrators and enablers of CRSV in new and revised National Action Plans on WPS.
5. Prioritize Interim and Comprehensive Reparations
   • Implement Wartime Reparations: Initiate urgent wartime reparations to address immediate needs and extend support, recognition, and compensation to survivors during and after a conflict.
   • Recognize Survivors’ Legal Status: Grant legal recognition to survivors as civilian victims of war, including for children born of wartime rape, without a deadline for status recognition.
   • Establish Comprehensive Reparations Programs: Design holistic reparations frameworks in collaboration with survivors that integrate medical, psychosocial, and economic empowerment measures, such as capacity-building initiatives and income-generating activities.