Perceptions of justice and hierarchies of rape: Rethinking approaches to sexual violence in conflict affected societies from the bottom-up

In the recent years, most studies of sexual violence in conflicts have focused on rape as a war strategy and on prosecution as the way to deliver justice to survivors. This study highlights women’s diverse experiences of rape in conflict societies and explores how these, impact on survivors understanding of what justice should be and how it can be delivered.

Despite all the international communities’ efforts to support and finance the criminal justice machinery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lives of survivors in the areas that I have studied remain marked by a deep sense of injustice and marginalisation. The research highlighted how justice is personally and culturally defined and context specific. Ignoring such dimensions often meant that the desire of survivors for justice remains unfulfilled. The research revealed that in context such as the DRC, members of the international community have failed to deliver because they were shy of exploring indigenous notions and perceptions of justice and to link these to the context where they work. While the aim of delivering justice remains paramount, it is time to redefine justice broadly from the ground-up.