After sexual violence: paths to recovery

Abstract

The Review has chosen to open this issue with the voices of those who have suffered sexual violence and have been overcoming the multiple ensuing challenges. All have benefited from health care, psychological, psychosocial or material support and/or legal advice provided by the ICRC, the relevant National Red Cross Society or local partners – the non-governmental organization Profamilia in Colombia and the “maisons d’écoute” in the Kivus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The testimonies below reflect real, personal – sometimes very intimate – stories of persons who have agreed to share their experience, their trauma, the difficulties they and their loved ones have been facing, the way they have worked to overcome them, as well as their hopes for the future. In order to protect them and their relatives, their testimonies have been anonymized and references to specific locations deleted.