Bukavu, 24 November 2015: The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in collaboration with the Bukavu lawyers’ bar and the Group of the Rule of Law/Sexual Violence experts organized on 24 November 2015, a workshop on Lawyers’ role and good practices in the judiciary assistance and the protection of the victims and witnesses of sexual violence, for about twenty lawyers in the South Kivu province,.

Mamadou S. Diallo, the Joint Human Rights Office Coordinator in the South-Kivu province said the challenges facing the fight against impunity for sexual violence are huge, including the judiciary system’s lack of resources and capacities, prison escapes, constraints on victims’ access to justice, frequent resorts to out-of-court settlements between the victims and the perpetrators.
 

Norbert Bisimwa Yabe Ntayitunda, president of the Bar in Bukavu, for his part, said “sex-oriented criminality has now reached a high”. Echoing the attorney general of the Court of Appeal in Bukavu, Maître Norbert Ntayitunda who highlighted “over 60% of detainees in the central prison of Bukavu are prosecuted for acts of rapes and sexual violence.” Such statistics should question the conscience of the national and international community, said the president of the Bar and call for a mobilization to eradicate this ill that is firmly taking root.

Marietha Dos Santos, the acting chief of the MONUSCO/South-Kivu office applauded the Joint Human Rights Office initiative, underscoring “the United Nations Organization, through MONUSCO has made the fight against sexual violence and fight against impunity their priority.” On top of the State’s responsibility to protect the victims and witnesses, the “different judiciary actors, namely lawyers should work towards guaranteeing the implementation of such protection”, said Marietha Dos Santos.

Several relevant modules bear on the judiciary assistance to the victims of sexual violence, the role of the judiciary authorities in the protection of the victims of sexual violence and the role of the lawyers’’ Bar.

Alain Likota