Explained: The (Many) Problems With CRSV

Conflict Related Sexual Violence has never had a simple fix. 

There are many potential  motivations for why a perpetrator commits an assault.

For this reason, we cannot reduce CRSV to a momentary decision to commit an atrocity.

Therefore, we must look at CRSV differently.

These factors all play a significant role one in determining a conflict’s level of brutality:

• The ethnic history between the combatants 

• The military strategy employed

• How the military is recruiting soldiers

• The degree of state collapse

• The role of non-affiliated armed combatants jailers, officials, community members, and loved ones in the assaults 

These factors differ from conflict to conflict. As a result, CRSV survivors require individualized treatment. 

Even if these factors were simplified to a base motivation (like an in-the-moment decision to rape, assault, humiliate etc.) there still exists several barriers to justice that require survivor-specific solutions. 

Stigma and Underreporting

Are the survivors in a social environment that blames, punishes and/or attacks them for being assaulted?

• How does the survivor’s cultural, communal and religious background interpret the assault?

• How does the survivor interpret the result?

• Does the survivor’s family and friends see what happened as ‘shameful’?

• Would speaking out make the survivor’s social life worse?

• When 1 out of every 10 - 20 survivors report their assault, how can we know the true number of cases? 

Lack of Protective Security Measures

In a conflict zone, how can we identify and protect potential victims? Furthermore, if a victim wants to speak out:

• How can they be protected from the soldier or the soldier’s friends coming back?

• How can their family be protected?

• Can survivors get to courts, lawyers, hospitals, community groups and therapy safely?

Lack of Legal Redress

In a conflict zone, how do survivors get justice?

• Are there lawyers and courts that survivors can go to report what happened?

• Is there relevant legislation in place that holds perpetrators accountable?

• Will perpetrators show up/be held accountable if they are prosecuted?

• What happens after? Will they face a penalty that is comparable to the crime or will they simply be let go?

• Who is responsible for holding the perpetrator accountable - will they? For example, will the state hold state actors accountable for committing atrocities? 

• How broken down is the state’s government - can they back up legal redress?

• Can the survivor afford the legal fees associated with seeking justice?

Barriers To Accessing Support 

Do survivors have a place they can go to that can handle their psychological needs?

• What do survivors need in order to access psychological help within 72 hours of their assault?

• Do they require money, transportation, family/community support etc.

• Does psychological support exist to them on a long-term basis?

• If they are displaced, is there a way for them to access psychosocial support, even on a long-term basis?

• Do survivors have a positive community they can/are integrated into?

. There are two problems with CRSV:

• 1. We cannot predict with a degree of certainty when and where CRSV will occur in a conflict. Therefore we cannot predict and we cannot defend potential survivors from it.

• 2. There are several barriers that exist that prevent survivors from receiving the justice and healing they desire.