Bringing to Scale Best Practices in Forensic Medical Documentation of Sexual Violence in The Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya

To make the greatest impact for sexual violence survivors, societies must remove barriers to justice. Physicians for Human Rights will use its innovations in multisectoral training, standardized forensic medical documentation, and institutional capacity development to bring to scale best practices for confronting conflict-related sexual violence in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. PHR’s novel approach will empower clinicians, police officers, lawyers, and judges to collaborate using proven forensic techniques to improve injury documentation, strengthen investigations, and preserve evidence. Advancing national adoption of this approach within government and health care institutions, will remove the barrier of inadequate medical-legal evidence so that investigators have what they need to pursue perpetrators, courts know how to assess the legitimacy and integrity of evidence, and more survivors get justice – contributing to reductions in sexual violence crimes.