Transformational Support to Victims of Mass Atrocities

Supporting victims of mass atrocities is an integral component of a holistic transitional justice program, with meaningful consequences over the long term, by rebuilding communities, promoting survivor agency, and accompanying survivors along a path of healing and reintegration. Victims and affected communities suffer enduring harms that persist even after courts deliver judgments against perpetrators or societies acknowledge legacies of abuse through truth telling or memorialization processes. Individuals and communities who suffered mass atrocities have pressing, tangible needs that must be prioritized for them to resume their life projects and participate meaningfully in other transitional justice processes. These can include fistula repair for a victim of rape, a prosthetic limb for a victim of mutilation, livelihood training for a former child soldier, or psycho-social assistance for a torture victim. If connected to larger transitional justice aims, these interventions—which in some environments may be modest in scope and cost—can have transformational impact, contributing to the generational projects of reconciliation, social repair, and peacebuilding within communities. This funding opportunity recognizes the rehabilitation of victims as a form of transitional justice, complementing other mechanisms, such as prosecutions, truth telling, memorialization, lustrations, and institutional reform.