Amplifying Voices: Survivors' Advocacy for Change in South Sudan
by Mera Eftaiha, Synergy for Justice Director of Programmes
At the beginning of last year, I had the chance to go back to South Sudan, a country I lived in when I was working for a medical relief agency. It was great to go back to a familiar place, but this time, representing Synergy for Justice. I traveled with our justice advisor for the purpose of meeting new partners and identifying possible opportunities for testing Synergy’s Stigma Toolkit for Justice.
We were very lucky to meet with national justice organisations who are doing incredible work promoting justice and accountability in South Sudan. One of those wonderful organisations we met was STEWARDWOMEN, a women-led organisation working to develop, shape, and empower South Sudanese women to advocate for policies that foster equality and promote human rights for women and children. After speaking with STEWARDWOMEN, meeting their team, and learning about their work and the justice and accountability landscape in South Sudan, we knew that this was where we needed to test our toolkit and that they were going to be a great partner to help us do that. And so began our first pilot of the toolkit and our very first project in South Sudan.
Over the past year and a half, Synergy’s team of experts and STEWARDWOMEN worked closely with survivors of sexual violence to assess how stigma affects survivors’ interaction and engagement with the justice system in South Sudan. We held workshops with survivors who shared their experiences with the police, with victim advocates, with support services, and in courts. They spoke about the challenges they face: physical barriers such as the distance to police stations, courts or services; stigma from community members or family members; corruption in the system; and their fear of retribution from perpetrators. The challenges and barriers are many, and the survivors are strong in their need to have their concerns heard and addressed.
With that in mind, we met with representatives of the survivor groups to partner with them and elevate their voices to advocate for change. The women discussed many issues and gaps, prioritised them with advocacy points, identified their targets, and developed their own advocacy plans. We invited stakeholders and allies (donors, media, civil society groups) in South Sudan to support the survivors by listening to them practice their messaging, providing feedback, and helping frame their advocacy goals and their target audience. The messages, issues, and voices from these women are all collated and published in the report we’re releasing this month, There is No Justice in This Country-Experiences of Sexual Violence Survivors in South Sudan.
The report centres survivors’ voices and lived experiences and sets out their recommendations and need for change and reform. The survivors framed their issues around four advocacy areas: 1) education and awareness raising to increase the rate of reporting, build understanding of rape and other forms of sexual violence, and increase survivor awareness of the availability of legal and other support services; 2) empowerment to build and strengthen survivor networks; 3) institutional reform to increase the capacity of local customary courts strengthen and expand the formal court system into all areas; and 4) legal/procedural reform to remove the mandatory requirement (and reduce reliance) on medical forms as corroboration of rape, and remove all other stigmatised and inaccurate misconceptions of sexual violence in the substantive and procedural laws.
We publish this report with the aim of making sure that survivors’ voices are heard loud and clear. One survivor said, “I came with my pain to the justice system with the expectation that someone will help, but I ended up coming back with more pain.” We hope that this report acts as a call to action for all actors within the justice system, to correct the course and experience of justice for survivors in South Sudan to help heal the pain of survivors.