In 2018, the Human Rights Center began looking at how to strengthen accountability for sexual violence using digital open source methods. HRC and the International Institute for Criminal Investigations brought together a group of open source investigators, gender experts, and experts on investigating sexual violence to begin developing a guide on using digital open source methodologies to investigate sexual violence in conflict settings. Workshop participants discussed how to create a victim-centered approach to online investigations of sexual violence. These perspectives will be synthesized in a companion guide to the Global Code of Conduct for Gathering and Using Information about Systematic and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, also known as the Murad Code after Nobel Laureate Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist.
We conducted the first-ever multi-country study of legal accountability for sexual violence in countries marked by recent armed conflict and/or political violence. The Long Road: Accountability for Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings, published in 2015, identifies key challenges and promising strategies for improving accountability in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
As part of a global movement to end wartime sexual violence, more than 80 legal, health, and law enforcement leaders from six African countries met in Kampala, Uganda, in late August 2015 for the Missing Peace Practitioners’ Workshop. The workshop provided a rare opportunity for frontline responders — from Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan — to discuss their work on the ground and to trade the tools and techniques they use to document and prosecute sexual violence and support survivors.
Workshop participants discussed new findings from a groundbreaking, four-country study on conflict-related sexual violence launched at the workshop by HRC. The study highlights barriers to investigating and prosecuting sexual violence and recommends better training and more funding for individuals on the front lines. Workshop participants brainstormed the role of these frontline responders in reporting, investigating, and prosecuting sexual violence that occurs during periods of armed conflict and other emergencies.
After participating in our multi-country research on domestic accountability for conflict-related sexual violence (2011-2015), African colleagues with careers in law enforcement, the military, and the judiciary asked us to help distill global guidance on investigating conflict-related sexual violence into practice tools they could use in their home jurisdictions. With Ugandan prosecutors, police, military personnel, judges, and healthcare workers, we developed a handbook on SGBV investigation, prosecution, and victim support – including in cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
We are often invited to provide technical assistance to local investigators, prosecutors, and judges who are taking on cases involving sexual violence as war crimes or crimes against humanity — often for the first time in their national systems. Sometimes, we help prosecutors and judges properly charge or evaluate evidence of conflict-related sexual violence, as in the trial of Hissène Habré, the former president of Chad. With international experts, we coordinated the drafting of an amicus curiae brief to clarify ways in which evidence of sexual violence could be charged. In May 2016, Habré was convicted of crimes including rape and sexual slavery.
Right: Survivors of sexual violence perpetrated by former Chadian president Hissène Habré cheer as he is convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture, including sexual violence and rape by an international tribunal in Senegal in 2016. Image by Kim Thuy Seelinger.
May 25, 2021
Hiding in Plain Site: Using Online Open-Source Information to Investigate Sexual Violence and Gender-Based Crimes
View PublicationMay 17, 2021
Power and Privilege: Investigating Sexual Violence with Digital Open Source Information
View PublicationJune 1, 2017
Rape and The President: The Remarkable Trial and (Partial) Acquittal of Hissène Habré
View PublicationApril 1, 2017
Uganda’s Case of Thomas Kwoyelo: Customary International Law on Trial
View PublicationMarch 16, 2017
International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict
View PublicationSeptember 9, 2016
Domestic Accountability for Sexual Violence: The Potential of Specialized Units in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda
View PublicationJune 14, 2016
Improving Accountability for Conflict-related Sexual Violence in Africa
View PublicationDecember 8, 2015
Amicus Curiae Brief, Hissène Habré Case
View PublicationJanuary 1, 2015
The Long Road: Research on Domestic Accountability for Sexual and Gender-based Crimes in Conflict-affected Settings
View PublicationMay 27, 2011
Kenya Sexual Offences Act Implementation Project
View PublicationMay 1, 2011
The Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Violence
View PublicationMay 1, 2011
The Jurisprudence of Sexual Violence
View PublicationMarch 17, 2020
Survivors, Hashtags and Justice: The Ethics of Investigating Sexual Violence Online
Image by Min Li Lim via Unsplash. Commentary — #Verified from the Human Rights Center: Survivors, Hashtags and Justice: The Ethics of Investigating Sexual
May 10, 2017
Hissène Habré’s rape acquittal must not be quietly airbrushed from history
Commentary — The Guardian: Hissène Habré’s rape acquittal must not be quietly airbrushed from history, authored by Kim Thuy Seelinger. Left: Khadidja Zidane holds a picture of her as a young
August 26, 2015
Police to institute sexual violence unit
HRC in the News — New Vision: Police to institute sexual violence unit, reporting on the ‘Missing Peace Practicioners’ Workshop and writing about the report “The Long Road:
August 26, 2015
Local support key to achieving justice in sexual violence cases, claim researchers
HRC in the News — The Guardian: Local support key to achieving justice in sexual violence cases, claim researchers, writing about the report “The Long Road: Accountability for Sexual Violence in
February 16, 2015
The Women in Peacebuilding Network’s peace hut in Totota, Liberia, where survivors can seek support from a female community leader. (Photo by Michelle Ben-David) Commentary —
February 14, 2013
The Missing Peace Symposium 2013
HRC in the News — United States Institute of Peace: The Missing Peace Symposium 2013, featuring HRC’s former Sexual Violence program.