Some 50 participants from the civil society, local authorities, academics, journalists and MONUSCO staff took part in the debates in the framework of a thematic round table held in MONUSCO HQ in Goma on March 12th.

The round table was organized by the Gender Section in collaboration with Civil Affairs Section, UNDP and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). The round table presented the sex-disaggregated results of the latest “Survey for the consolidation of peace and reconstruction in DRC”. The HHI undertakes regularly such surveys to assess the opinion of the population in Eastern DRC with regards to the security and peace consolidation.

The results of the surveys showed that the feeling of insecurity remains strong among both men and women in cities such as Goma and Beni despite a notable improvement since 2013. Both women and men perceive the efforts of the government to address sexual violence positively but, in particular, women with a low level of formal education lack knowledge about the measures undertaken by the authorities against sexual violence. One of the interesting results of the survey showed that if the incidence rate of sexual violence against women was about 14 cases for each 1000 women, men, too, experience sexual violence at a rate of 10 cases for every 1000 men.