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A Call to Action for States

Policy Recommendations

The Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is participating in the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London in June 2014. In this document, PHR urges all states to take important steps to ensure justice and accountability for crimes of sexual violence:

  • build strong evidentiary capacity by allocating sufficient financial resources of doctors, nurses, police officers, lawyers, and judges through training and education, including how to collect, document, analyze, and preserve forensic medical evidence for existing and future prosecutions;
  • foster cross-sectoral collaboration among the medical, law enforce- ment, and legal sectors, ensuring that responses to sexual violence are effective and coordinated in their efforts toward achieving higher prosecutions rates;
  • provide security and protection for survivors and witnesses as well as the clinicians, police, lawyers, and judges investigating and pre- siding over these cases in the justice process;
  • fund legal representation for sexual violence survivors through- out the entire judicial process, from the pre-trial to the post-trial phases, including the enforcement of judgments and court-ordered reparation; and
  • hold all perpetrators of sexual violence to account for their crimes, regardless of their position and station in government, their role in the security sector or armed forces, or their wealth or influence in society.

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