A man never cries: barriers to holistic care for male survivors of sexual violence in eastern DRC

ABSTRACT

While we know that most male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) do not have access to care, little attention has been devoted to a systematic analysis of why this is so. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with staff of service providers and male survivors of sexual violence, as well as from focus group discussions with community members in eastern DRC, this article sets out to explore challenges and barriers related to meeting the needs of male survivors of sexual violence with respect to their medical, psychological, socioeconomic and legal needs. Our findings suggest that local framings of masculinity can both negatively and positively influence support-seeking behaviour depending on how survivors themselves engage with masculinity ideals. Based on these findings, a conceptual framework including seven levels of barriers to care for male survivors has been developed. Although service providers strive to provide high-quality care to male survivors, we show that existing responses to sexual violence have mainly been designed to address sexual violence against women and need to be re-adapted to male survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• male survivors
• holistic care and barriers to care

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Acknowledgement

Our deepest thanks go to our interviewees and to all the people who facilitated this research. Lynn Nygaard from Peace Research Institute, Oslo and Caroline Gracia from the University of Michigan provided excellent editing assistance. Jonas Ewald and Chris High from Linnaeus University provided constructive comments for this research. The views expressed in this paper do not reflect the views of our institutions, and any errors in the text are ours alone.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ali Bitenga Alexandre

Ali Bitenga Alexandre is a Researcher at International Center for Advanced Research and Training in the DRC. His research focuses on gender, sexual violence, health, corruption, peace and conflict studies. His aim is to inform policy and interventions through evidence based data and eventually promote the scaling-up of research findings into changes in policy and practice.

Bertin Rutega

Bertin Rutega is the Programme Director of Panzi Foundation DRC and serves a Researcher at International Center for Advanced Research and Training. His research interests include SGBV and holistic care for survivors of sexual violence.

Prince Amini Byamungu

Prince Amini Byamungu is a Research Assistant at International Center for Advanced Research and Training.

Christine Amisi Notia

Christine Amisi Notia research focuses gender, health equity and impact of holistic care on survivors of sexual violence. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health.

Susanne Alldén

Susanne Alldén is a lecturer in the Department of Peace and Development at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Her research focuses on SGBV, women’s empowerment and political participation. She holds a PhD in Political Sciences.