Ending impunity for sexual and gender-based violence

Country: Democratic Republic of Congo © Catianne Tijerina, UN Women

When her husband was arrested during the 2015 political crisis, Luscie, 32, fled Bujumbura province in Burundi with her eight children, with only the clothes on their backs. Since then they have been refugees at the Lusenda camp in DRC.

Canada’s funding for UN Women has supported the deployment of expert investigators and advisors to collect evidence showing how sexual violence was used as a tool of genocide against the Yazidi community of Iraq and as a tactic to terrorize and control victims and their communities in the Kasai region of the DRC. Experts have also documented sexual violence against men and boys as a tactic for interrogation in detention centres, and against 2SLGBTQI+ individuals in Yemen and Syria.

With the support of UN Women, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has documented the multiple rights violations against Syrian women, children and men, and the unprecedented levels of suffering they continue to face over the course of the nearly nine-year-long war. By supporting these efforts, Canada is leading the way within the international community to stop these crimes and hold perpetrators to account.