The Connecting Survivors, Strengthening Voices and Creating Sustainable Change Project is a joint project between the Women Advocacy Network administered by the Justice and Reconciliation Project; and a women’s organisation based in/ with a programmatic presence in Northern Nigeria. The project feeds into the broader attempts to develop a victim-centered transitional justice process for survivors in Northern Uganda and Nigeria, by facilitating survivors of sexual violence to build individual and collective agency as a means of influencing policy and legislative discussions and processes; and providing a space for learning from the lived experiences of survivors of conflict related sexual violence to develop better interventions and responses.

Additionally survivors of conflict related sexual violence suffer long term psychological distress resulting from the physical, sexual, and mental abuse they experienced in captivity or during the sexual assault.  Sadly, although the endemic nature of conflict related sexual violence has been spotlighted, discussions on solutions and interventions aimed at addressing the consequences of sexual violence are often not informed by voices of survivors and victims of conflict related sexual violence. Therefore the main goal of this joint project is to enhance the individual and collective agency of survivors of conflict related sexual violence to contribute to the national transitional justice processes in Uganda and Nigeria.

This is achieved based on three objectives: 

1. Build the capacity of survivors of conflicted related sexual violence to become agents of sustainable change
2. Build and strengthen networks
3. Experiential sharing and learning for improved policy and legal frameworks

 

The project is funded by Trust Africa