G8 Leaders Urge To Support TFV On Victims Of Sexualised Violence

In a Declaration adopted on 11 April 2013, Ministers of the G8 countries, convening in London, emphasised the need to fund support for victims of sexual violence and “called on the international community, including the G8, to increase their efforts to mobilise such funding, including to programmes such as the ICC Trust Fund for Victims and its implementing partners”.

The Trust Fund strongly appreciates this high profile acknowledgement of the need to recognise the plight of victims of sexualised violence in armed conflict, both in terms of prosecuting the related crimes and ensuring that there is an appropriate response to the harm suffered.

Inspiring the G8 Declaration, the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PVSI) of the United Kingdom already in February 2013 supported the Trust Fund with half a million British pounds. The Trust Fund expresses its hope and expectation that other countries, including the G8, will follow suit in order to be able to comprehensively address the victimisation resulting from sexualised violence, within the framework of the Rome Statute.

To date, the Trust Fund has supported over 5,000 victims of sexual and gender based violence (SBGV) in northern Uganda and in eastern DRC. These include 200 girls abducted and/or conscripted and enslaved by armed groups in eastern DRC, as well as 780 children and women victimised by campaigns of mass rape and displaced from their communities in the Kivu provinces (DRC). The TFV is about to launch a new programme in the Central African Republic, focusing on victims of SGBV in armed conflict, as soon as the security situation allows.

The Trust Fund will welcome additional funding to ensure continuity of existing programmes and to expand its support to victims of SGBV to other ICC situation countries.