Press Release: 3 February 2023

Dominican Republic makes first voluntary contribution to the Trust Fund for Victims

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Dominican Republic makes first voluntary contribution to the Trust Fund for Victims
Photo: Minou Tavárez Mirabal, Chair, Board of Directors for the Trust Fund for Victims at the ICC (left), H.E Juan Bautista Durán, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands (centre) and Franziska Eckelmans, Acting Executive Director (right).

The Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) at the International Criminal Court (ICC) takes great pleasure in announcing that the Government of the Dominican Republic made its first ever voluntary contribution of US $10,000. The Dominican Republic is the 51st States Party of the ICC that has made a voluntary contribution to the TFV.

Welcoming this donation, Minou Tavárez Mirabal, Chair of the Board of Directors for the Trust Fund for Victims at the ICC thanked the Government of the Dominican Republic saying: “This voluntary contribution is a clear demonstration of the commitment of this Government, to ensure that the TFV is able to empower and provide justice for the victims of Rome Statue crimes.”

H.E. Ambassador Juan Bautista Durán of the Dominican Republic to the Netherlands said: “With this contribution, the Dominican Republic wishes to show its solidarity and unconditional support for the work and fundamental humanistic mission of the Trust Fund for Victims with the mandate of providing restorative justice to the victims of the most serious human rights violations under the Rome Statute System. We wish to contribute our grain of sand for the development of the cases in progress, the payment of compensation, and the implementation of future reparation and assistance programmes for all survivors of the most serious violations of human rights, to live with dignity, hope and options."

TFV and ICC form together the pillar of the Rome Statute’s reparative justice system. Transformative reparations are at the core of the TFV’s work. Through its partners, the TFV aims at empowering victims to overcome their harm and at mitigating the negative transgenerational effects of the most serious crimes of concern to humanity.

To date, the TFV is implementing programmes in four reparation cases ordered by the ICC, the Lubanga, Katanga, Al Mahdi, and Ntaganda cases. The convicted persons in these cases were all found to be indigent and the TFV has responded to the ICC's requests to consider complementing the payment of the reparations awards. Using the available voluntary contributions, the TFV is paying for the implementation of reparations awards in these four cases. Additional funds are urgently required to continue the reparation programme for the victims of the case Lubanga. The TFV has also engaged in the fifth reparations proceeding in Ongwen since the beginning of 2021.

The TFV conducts country programmes for the benefit of victims of Rome Statute crimes in the following ICC situation countries: Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and Uganda. The TFV will soon launch new programmes in Georgia and Kenya.

For more information about the Trust Fund for Victims, please contact: [email protected] or visit: www.trustfundforvictims.org

Source: Trust Fund for Victims