SSI VI: Across genders, across continents. Kampala, 2025

The sixth South-South Institute on Sexual Violence met at the Kolping Hotel in Kampala, Uganda, from 6 to 8 May 2025, under the theme “Across genders, across continents”. It was hosted by Refugee Law Project (RLP), an outreach programme of the School of Law at Makerere University. At the opening, the RLP Director thanked the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for a grant supporting the meeting.

Participants included survivor advocates, support organisations, academic partners, donors, practitioners, policy makers, government and police representatives, medical staff and faith leaders. Some took part from the diaspora, including from Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom, and some joined online. Survivor-led support groups from across Uganda were recognised at the opening.

The Institute was first known as the South-South Institute on Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in Forced Displacement. The name was later changed to be more inclusive and to reflect how different forms of disadvantage overlap.

Programme

Session order follows the event notes. The programme schedule (linked below) is the authority for order and times.

Day 1, 6 May: setting the foundation

Opening ceremony. Facilitated by Roland Biryahwaho, Deputy Director of Programs, RLP. Remarks from Dr Pius Ojara, Director of RLP; Dr Ivan Engoru, representing the Dean of the School of Law, Makerere University; and Joy Okelo of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Dr Ojara named Professor Chris Dolan and David Onen as the Institute’s conceptual founders.

Keynote address and reflections. Professor Chris Dolan, founder of the Institute and former Director of RLP, spoke online from the University of Warwick. The session was chaired by David Onen, former Gender and Sexuality Program Manager at RLP. Professor Dolan described growing international attention to sexual violence against men, and warned that tighter aid budgets push complex needs behind food, water and shelter. David Onen traced how the Institute has changed and set out questions for the week, including working with resettled survivors in the diaspora, responding to aid cuts and regressive laws, and engaging young people, among them the children of survivors.

Panel: weaponisation of masculinities by hegemonism. Chaired by Dr Robert Izeroku, Makerere University. Dr Pius Ojara presented RLP research with South Sudanese refugee men in Adjumani, arguing that harm begins when being a man is tied to domination for political and economic ends. A speaker from FIDA International described community awareness work, peer groups for young women and girls, and training for police and health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

Panel: championing survivor leadership. Chaired by Stephen Okidi, Field Office Coordinator, RLP Adjumani. Leaders of six survivor-led support groups described how their groups formed and the peer support, savings, livelihood and awareness work they do.

Day 2, 7 May: healing journeys and support systems

Reflections on Day 1. Participants discussed the gap in Ugandan law on the rape of men, the effect of sexual violence on whole communities, and the principle that nobody should be made to speak.

Panel: survivors’ perspectives on trauma, healing and peer support. Moderated by Ssuubi Akula, Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing Program, RLP. Survivors spoke about trauma that continues after reaching physical safety and about the role of peer support.

Discussion: support group structure and challenges. An RLP contributor described RLP’s work with survivor support groups, most started by survivors themselves. Points raised included how livelihood gifts can unintentionally draw stigma, and how public awareness work can expose a survivor’s family.

Panel: medical rehabilitation of survivors of sexual violence, a doctors’ perspective. Chaired by Olanya Francis. Two medical practitioners from facilities in Kiryandongo, Lamwo and Kampala spoke about how patients come to disclose, the physical and psychological consequences they treat in women and men, and limits in the health system, including a lack of confidential consulting rooms and long travel to referral hospitals. Their recommendations included holistic assessment, training a pool of health workers, specialists travelling to settlements (“reverse referral”), multidisciplinary teams, and reducing how often survivors must retell their experience.

Panel: humanitarian actors’ engagement with survivors of sexual violence. Speakers included Ronald Odida, Field Office Coordinator, RLP Kiryandongo, and Joel Ali Moon, Case Management Supervisor, Lutheran World Federation, Kiryandongo, with speakers from two further organisations. RLP presented its Screen, Refer, Support, Document (SRSD) model. Other speakers described savings and loan groups, skills training, and approaches designed for children and parents.

Panel: healing has no boundaries. Ronald Ssazi of StrongMinds described its six-session group interpersonal psychotherapy model. Ssuubi Akula of RLP described RLP’s trauma-informed approach built on survivor-formed support groups, with individual, group, family and child-focused work. Discussion covered men’s help-seeking, disability inclusion, staff care and supervision, and consent as the limit on involving survivors’ families.

Day 3, 8 May: shaping policy and driving change

Reflections on Day 2. Facilitated by Ronald Odida and chaired by Apollo Mulondo, both of RLP. Participants returned to the SRSD model, staff care and secondary trauma, and recovery that does not follow a straight line. Apollo Mulondo said no one should be pushed to speak. Atim Esther, Program Manager, Gender and Sexuality Program, RLP, and Susan Alupo, Access to Justice Program, RLP, also contributed.

Panel: shaping policy and driving advocacy and activism. Chaired by Susan Alupo, RLP. Speakers: Gabriel Ochin, Legal Officer, RLP Adjumani, and Innocent Ahimbisibwe, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with a representative of the Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda. The panel discussed the difference between gender-neutral wording in international law and gender-specific definitions in national law, and regional protocols that name only women and girls as victims.

Film screening and discussion: Capitaine Abigail. A 15-minute documentary made by RLP’s Media for Social Change programme in 2018. The discussion that followed centred on harm by people in positions of power and on the lack of legal recourse.

Closing session. Atim Esther thanked participants and the SSI Secretariat. Dr Pius Ojara closed with a call for masculinity and femininity defined by dignity, safety and care. He said efforts to include survivors from Ukraine, Syria, the former Yugoslavia and Palestine had not succeeded for logistical reasons, and that he hoped they would take part in future.

A smaller debrief for staff, speakers and survivor representatives followed the closing.

What came out of it

Stated by named speakers in their professional roles:

• Dr Pius Ojara said RLP’s media team will look at protection and copyright so that written consent is in place before any video goes online.
• Dr Ojara said he would like research on survivors’ resilience and innovation to be completed before the next Institute. This was a wish, not a commitment.
• A representative of the Office of the Prime Minister said the Office would explore livelihood support and support for organisations working with survivors. No details or dates were given.
• The policy panel recommended gender-neutral legal definitions of sexual offences, change in regional African Union instruments, training for medical and legal professionals, and organisational protection policies that cover all genders. These were speakers’ recommendations, not decisions.

Practice points raised by RLP staff and partners:

• Screen for experiences of sexual violence rather than waiting for disclosure.
• Provide confidential consultation spaces.
• Check livelihood support for the risk of stigma, consider a survivor’s family before encouraging public disclosure, never force disclosure, and have follow-up support ready first.
• Reduce referral fatigue and repeated retelling.
• Fund staff care and clinical supervision.

Looking ahead

These ideas were raised in the debrief. They are proposals, not decisions.

• Start planning earlier, with survivors involved from the concept stage.
• Possible venues raised included a refugee settlement or other site in Uganda, another East African Community country, the United Kingdom or Germany. No venue or date has been set.
• A participant proposed that the Institute need not be a single event: regional or online hubs could feed into a larger gathering, and the next Institute could be organised by survivors. RLP and the Secretariat have not announced a decision on this.
• Give survivor speakers clearer guidance and earlier briefing, put fewer people on each panel, and improve interpretation for French and local-language speakers.

Partners

Partners listed on the earlier version of this page: Refugee Law Project, First Step, Urban Light Foundation, Survivors Manchester and up! International.