Jaqueline Mutere and Angela Escobar, SEMA members from Kenya and Colombia, speak up about their perspectives on justice and reparations at the Hague Humanity Hub
SEMA’s Global Advocacy
We couldn’t allow things to be done for us without us being taken into account. Hence, the motto: Nothing about us, without us.
– Tatiana, SEMA member
One of the main objectives of SEMA is to collectively advocate for the end of sexual violence used as a weapon of war, and demand the rights of survivors, including access to justice and holistic care.
Advocacy is therefore an essential aspect of SEMA’s work. The network has made a major push over the past seven years to ensure survivor presence and agency at a wide range of international events, forums, and conferences and these efforts have paid off. SEMA members have attended an array of high-level advocacy and awareness-raising events, conferences, and speaking engagements, including several side events to the UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the European Council’s expert panels on Women in Conflicts, the Global Conference on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict (PSVI) 2022, among others.
Other global initiatives to which SEMA has contributed include:
Credit: Josh Estey, Panzi, DRC
The Murad Code
The Murad Code project is a global consultative initiative aimed at building and supporting a community of better practice for, with and concerning survivors of systematic and conflict-related sexual violence. Its key objective is to respect and support survivors’ rights and to ensure work with survivors to investigate, document and record their experiences is safe, ethical and effective in upholding their human rights.
The Murad Code was developed by the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) and the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative of the UK government (PSVI) in consultation with Nadia’s Initiative. Through in-depth, preliminary discussions with more than 160 survivors of wartime sexual violence (including 8 SEMA members) held in 2021-2022, documenters, researchers, donors and other experts from across the world contributed to the elaboration of this tool.
Global Survivors Fund (GSF)
SEMA members’ tireless advocacy for the right to redress contributed to the establishment of the Global Survivors Fund, the reparations initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mukwege and Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Prize laureates 2018. GSF has been set up to enhance access to reparations for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence around the globe, thus responding to a gap long identified by survivors. SEMA members have participated in GSF launch in October 2019 in New York City, to mark the 10th anniversary of the UN Mandate on Sexual Violence, in which they gave compelling testimony about their realities and the pressing need for survivor-centred approaches to change.
Since its launch, SEMA members have been involved and consulted in several projects of the Fund. Currently, 3 SEMA members are part of GSF’s Board of Directors.
Female Military Officer’s Course by UN Women
For two years, a Q&A session with SEMA members was part of the official curriculum of the UN Women’s Female Military Officers Course. This course is meant for female peacekeepers who will be deployed to peacekeeping missions all over the world. During this training, the soon-to-be peacekeepers learn about the causes and consequences of conflict-related sexual violence. As a part of the training, peacekeepers watch the film SEMA made by the DRC survivors’ movement and participate in a Q&A session with survivors from SEMA, the global network of survivors.