Men’s experiences as victims of sexual and gender-based violence remain little recognised in research, policy or practice. Mainstream narratives generally continue to depict men as perpetrators of violence and women as victims. Yet, having been linked to forced migration in contexts of armed conflict, sexual violence against men is slowly becoming recognised as far more widespread than was previously thought. Responding to this, the Institute of Development Studies approached the Refugee Law Project and Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda in order to jointly design and carry out a study on collective action among male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. This report explores one central question addressed by the study: ‘despite the odds stacked against them, what makes it possible for male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence to organise and become activists, challenging discriminatory social and gender norms?’ The study finds that, despite pervasive discrimination, groups of male survivors have been able to develop resilience and mutual support through collective action. Further, the study finds that third-party service providers and non-governmental organisations can play an important support role in reinforcing the resilience and capacity of male survivors to organise collectively. The report addresses the overarching question through three main sub-questions: 1. How can looking at male survivors of sexual violence help us understand the complexity of men’s relationship to sexual and gender-based violence? 2. How and why do groups of male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence respond to their experiences of violence, oppression, stigmatisation and marginalisation, including as refugees? 3. How does the individual agency of male survivors of sexual violence living as refugees interact with collective action to respond to the experience of violence and marginalisation

David, O.

Dolan, C.

Edström, J.

Shahrokh, T.

English

White Rose Research Online

Therapeutic activism : Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda breaking the silence over male rape in conflict-related sexual violence

Men’s experiences as victims of sexual and gender-based violence remain little recognised in research, policy or practice. Mainstream narratives generally continue to depict men as perpetrators of violence and women as victims. Yet, having been linked to forced migration in contexts of armed conflict, sexual violence against men is slowly becoming recognised as far more widespread than was previously thought. Responding to this, the Institute of Development Studies approached the Refugee Law Project and Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda in order to jointly design and carry out a study on collective action among male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. 
This report explores one central question addressed by the study: ‘despite the odds stacked against them, what makes it possible for male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence to organise and become activists, challenging discriminatory social and gender norms?’ The study finds that, despite pervasive discrimination, groups of male survivors have been able to develop resilience and mutual support through collective action. Further, the study finds that third-party service providers and non-governmental organisations can play an important support role in reinforcing the resilience and capacity of male survivors to organise collectively.
The report addresses the overarching question through three main sub-questions:
1. How can looking at male survivors of sexual violence help us understand the
complexity of men’s relationship to sexual and gender-based violence?
2. How and why do groups of male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence respond
to their experiences of violence, oppression, stigmatisation and marginalisation,
including as refugees?
3. How does the individual agency of male survivors of sexual violence living as
refugees interact with collective action to respond to the experience of violence and
marginalisation?UK Department for International Developmen

Edström, J

Dolan, C

Shahrokh, T

David, O

IDS OpenDocs

                                                                                                                                
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                 
 
  
THERAPEUTIC ACTIVISM: MEN OF 
HOPE REFUGEE ASSOCIATION 
UGANDA BREAKING THE SILENCE 
OVER MALE RAPE IN CONFLICT-
RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 
 
Empowerment of Women and Girls  
 
 
Jerker Edström, Chris Dolan and Thea Shahrokh,  
with Onen David  
March 2016 
 
 
 
              
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THERAPEUTIC ACTIVISM: MEN OF HOPE REFUGEE 
ASSOCIATION UGANDA BREAKING THE SILENCE OVER 
MALE RAPE IN CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 
Jerker Edström, Chris Dolan and Thea Shahrokh, with Onen David 
March 2016 
 
This is an Open Access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and 
reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are clearly 
credited. 
 
First published by the Institute of Development Studies in March 2016 
© Institute of Development Studies/Refugee Law Project 2016 
 
IDS is a charitable company limited by guarantee and registered in England (No. 877338). 
The IDS programme on Strengthening Evidence-based Policy works across seven key 
themes. Each theme works with partner institutions to co-construct policy-relevant 
knowledge and engage in policy-influencing processes. This material has been 
developed under the Empowerment of Women and Girls theme. 
 
The development of this material has been led by Institute of Development Studies and 
Refugee Law Project who jointly hold the copyright. Input was provided by Men of Hope 
Refugee Association Uganda (MOHRAU). 
 
The authors would like to thank all members of MOHRAU for their proactive and 
engaged involvement in this research process – particularly the core reference group: 
Aimé Moninga, Alain Kabenga, Thierry Inongi, Steven Kighoma and Joseph. The 
authors would also like to thank Dieudonne Maganya and Kabafunzaki Darius King, of 
the Video Advocacy Unit of the RLP’s Media for Social Change programme, for their 
unstinting technical support. Special thanks also to Judy El Bushra, Elizabeth Mills, 
Elaine Mercer and Amy Hall for their thorough review of – and extremely helpful 
comments on – the draft report and film. Thanks are also due to Jim Sumberg, Deepta 
Chopra and many others from the institutions to which the authors are affiliated, and to 
the UK Department for International Development for its support under the IDS 
Accountable Grant. While the authors are deeply grateful for all the support and inputs, 
they take full responsibility for the views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this 
report, as well as for any errors. 
 
The material has been funded by UK aid from the UK Government, however the views 
expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official policies. 
 
AG Level 2 Output ID: 123 
1 
 
Men’s experiences as victims of sexual and gender-based violence remain little recognised 
in research, policy or practice. Mainstream narratives generally continue to depict men as 
perpetrators of violence and women as victims. Yet, having been linked to forced migration 
in contexts of armed conflict, sexual violence against men is slowly becoming recognised as 
far more widespread than was previously thought. Responding to this, the Institute of 
Development Studies (IDS) approached the Refugee Law Project (RLP) and Men of Hope 
Refugee Association Uganda (MOHRAU) in order to jointly design and carry out a study on 
collective action among male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. 
The Evidence Report that this brief accompanies explores one central question addressed 
by the study: ‘despite the odds stacked against them, what makes it possible for male 
survivors of conflict-related sexual violence to organise and become activists, challenging 
discriminatory social and gender norms?’ The study finds that, despite pervasive 
discrimination, groups of male survivors have been able to develop resilience and mutual 
support through collective action. Further, the study finds that third-party service providers 
and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can play an important support role in 
reinforcing the resilience and capacity of male survivors to organise collectively. 
The report addresses the overarching question through three main sub-questions: 
1. How can looking at male survivors of sexual violence help us understand the 
complexity of men’s relationship to sexual and gender-based violence? 
2. How and why do groups of male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence respond 
to their experiences of violence, oppression, stigmatisation and marginalisation, 
including as refugees? 
3. How does the individual agency of male survivors of sexual violence living as 
refugees interact with collective action to respond to the experience of violence and 
marginalisation? 
Approach and methodology 
This study adopts key elements of a feminist framework of empowerment through critical 
consciousness and collective action (applied to male rather than female victims), but also 
relevant critical theory and concepts on masculinities, trauma recovery, agency, migration 
and refugee status in relation to activism and citizenship. This combination of perspectives 
was chosen to help us move away from common limiting assumptions about sexual and 
gender-based violence, and gender. It also allows for a substantive recognition of the unique 
set of issues driving these men’s experiences of marginalisation, and their responses. 
The research employed a collaborative and grounded approach. Research framing and 
questions were co-constructed between Men of Hope members and staff from RLP and IDS. 
Furthermore, the research was designed to allow insights and understanding to emerge 
directly from the data, as opposed to searching for a predetermined hypothesis. We aimed to 
ensure that context and history were taken into account in the way that meaning was 
constructed in the analysis. Research subjects comprised 36 MOHRAU members and four 
of their female partners, all living as refugees in Uganda (predominantly as a result of having 
moved away from conflict within the Great Lakes Region). Focusing on understanding both 
individual journeys and the dynamics of the group, participants were purposefully sampled. 
Through a dialogue facilitated by IDS and RLP, a context-specific framing was developed 
collectively between the Men of Hope leadership group, RLP and IDS, alongside the wording 
of research and interview questions. The IDS and RLP research team conducted 13 
interviews with members of MOHRAU and four with female partners of group members.  
One focus group discussion was also conducted with members on the issues posed by the 
emerging analysis. 
2 
 
Alongside these interviews and discussions, Men of Hope members also led their own 
process of telling and visually capturing individual and collective narratives. This involved 
five MOHRAU members in leadership roles developing video recordings of their individual 
testimonies of their journeys to activism, and a broader group of members creating a 
dramatised film with the title Men Can Be Raped Too. RLP and IDS provided technical 
support, including in participatory film-making. 
Summary highlights of findings 
How can looking at male survivors help us understand the complexity of 
men’s relationship to sexual violence? 
The existence of male survivors challenges attempts to reduce the narrative on sexual 
violence to men’s perpetration and women’s victimisation. The experiences of the men in 
this study – as victims, as survivors and/or as activists – demonstrate that their relationships 
to sex, violence and gender identity are deeply complex, and cannot be explained with 
reference to a simplistic gender binary. Our findings vividly demonstrate the impact of sexual 
violence on male victims’ subjective displacement from personhood. 
At its core, sexual violence ruptures the victims’ understanding of their own gender identity, 
and of what it means to be ‘men’ – notions previously predicated on traditional models of 
masculinity expressed in relation to (and counterposed to) female identity. This rupture 
results in stigmatisation from the community, silencing and isolating men who have been 
raped. Sexual violence against men by men illustrates the socially constructed nature of 
gender relations enacted within broader relations of power and conflict. We see that 
inhabiting a man’s body holds no guarantees of masculinity, and we can thus recognise the 
plurality of men, masculinities and their relationships to gender inequality and violence. 
While many of the men in this study had not questioned their masculinity prior to being 
victimised, it is clear that reassessments begin to happen as individual healing and collective 
consciousness start to emerge. These in turn provide illustrations of concepts of 
intersectionality, transitions, transformations and liminality, as described in Section 3 of the 
report. These are useful not only in unveiling the men’s complex of multiple interacting 
challenges, but also in understanding how changes in their relationships to sexual violence 
can come about. Being marginalised as refugees intersects with (and is compounded by) 
both the marginalisation experienced in relation to gender identity and position, and the 
question marks raised over their sexuality. However, when survivors begin to connect with 
other people who have had similar experiences, this opens up new possibilities – of healing, 
of building new identities, and of reassessing their relationships to others and to the world. It 
appears to be through gradual and non-linear processes and through liminal spaces of 
confusion and reconstitution that these transformations take place. 
How and why do groups of refugee male survivors respond to their 
experiences of trauma? 
Exposure to conflict-related sexual violence and displacement both damage the sense of 
self, identity and community of refugee men who have experienced this trauma. However, 
the emergence of peer support groups has provided a safe space for male survivors, which 
has been integral to enabling them to respond. Such groups can allow for interconnected 
individual and group healing, as well as for the building of new identities. Peer support not 
only mitigates the isolation but also directly challenges the reasons for marginalisation and 
ostracism experienced by male survivors. There is a collective rejection of assumptions that 
men cannot be vulnerable or raped; and patriarchal norms of male dominance and 
invulnerability begin to be questioned. Related to this, the research found shifts in study 
3 
 
participants’ understanding of interpersonal relationships, resulting in closer and more 
egalitarian relationships between some of the women and men involved. 
These findings suggest that approaches to working with groups of refugee men who are 
survivors of sexual violence can usefully draw on positive psychology perspectives on 
psychosocial support, peer support and self-help. They also indicate that such approaches 
need to go beyond the many approaches to trauma recovery that frame ‘reintegration’ as a 
return to established norms and communities. Approaches need to recognise changes in 
identities and build new communities of belonging. The findings highlight the importance of 
recognising the fluid spaces group members pass through or experience, and how mutual 
support (in these often difficult and non-linear journeys) is crucial for constructing group 
identity. This fluidity, and the multiple identities of individuals and collectives, can counter 
static prescriptive norms that limit creativity, agency and the formation of new communities. 
Strategic engagement with identity narratives established within international communities – 
for example, ‘survivors’ – is an important tactic; it enables groups or individuals to make 
claims on an international humanitarian asylum system that has systematically excluded the 
rights of male victims, for reasons already discussed. This linkage to strategically accessing 
international support can usefully draw lessons from the experience and concept of 
‘therapeutic citizenship’ among self-help groups of people living with HIV in Africa. 
How does individual agency interact with collective action to respond to 
marginalisation? 
The findings revealed a number of elements as to ‘how’ individual group members’ actions 
interact with their collective action, some of which relate to the discussion of healing (above). 
Initially, new members may only be concerned about (or act on) their own needs; but we 
have seen how collective healing quickly repositions members’ motivations towards helping 
others within (and outside) the group. Increasing engagement gradually raises members’ 
political consciousness of their issue within a broader oppressive context and ignites their 
desire to be activists for the group, and for the cause of ‘breaking the silence’. We found that 
healing is political through challenging dominant gender narratives, and that political 
engagement in advocacy is also healing, individually and collectively. 
A critical aspect of the dynamics of the group’s functioning relates to the role of outside 
actors. While the group was created coming out of support activities led by RLP, the latter 
continues to nurture and support MOHRAU, alongside a range of other groups of vulnerable 
refugees and minorities. Furthermore, key members have had their horizons expanded by 
taking part in international meetings or learning experiences such as the South-South 
Institute (discussed in Section 2 of the report). Other service organisations in Kampala 
provide different forms of support, such as medical treatment or counselling. The role of 
supporters and allies is crucial, both for the group’s internal development and for their 
individual and collective action and ‘representation’ in advocacy work, locally as well as 
globally. 
Men of Hope may provide a microcosmic space for exercise of ‘citizenship’, which is 
otherwise so restricted in the daily lives of group members. In framing the issue of 
citizenship, we appeal to critiques of simple formalistic state-centred (or organisationally 
centred) narratives, which can occlude the complex negotiations of the politics of everyday 
lives. To even begin to grapple with the situation of refugee male survivors of sexual 
violence – let alone their activism for international recognition and support – we need to see 
citizenship as more than simply a relationship between citizens and nation states. While 
there are important differences in context, limiting comparisons with the experiences 
surrounding the HIV epidemic, historic notions of citizenship need to be significantly 
extended. They need to go beyond a narrow definition of the individual rights-bearing 
4 
 
citizen’s relation to a duty-bearing nation state, to the everyday politics of people’s lives, and 
beyond, to engage with the global ‘biopolitics’ of gender, humanitarian aid and law. 
Conclusion 
The answer to the overarching question (‘what makes it possible for male survivors of 
conflict-related sexual violence to organise and become activists, and to challenge 
discriminatory social and gender norms?’) contains three key elements. First, we need to 
move away from gender-binary models for addressing the needs of individual women and 
households and work instead with diverse community formations and support groups. 
Second, the scope of models of recovery focused on individual trauma must be broadened 
to include collective healing as well, with a corresponding mix of therapeutic models. 
Supporting collective healing and the building (or rebuilding) of new identities and new 
relationships – at times with external support – is, in itself, a challenge to discriminatory 
social and gender norms. Third, it is increasingly urgent to nurture politically conscious 
collective action by survivors themselves, drawing strategically on specific individuals’ 
unique capabilities and facilitating joint advocacy to influence broader international 
humanitarian policy and politics. Recognising the therapeutic activism of refugee survivors of 
sexual violence, their self-determination and their claims for the realisation of human rights 
will make a major contribution to the efforts of humanitarian and development policymakers 
and practitioners to address the issue of sexual violence effectively and sustainably. 
Recommendations 
In order to put into practice global policy commitments to working with all survivors of sexual 
violence, be they women, girls, men or boys – as outlined in the G8 declaration on 
Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and UN Security Council Resolution 2106 – we 
propose the following recommendations. 
National and multilateral/United Nations (UN) development aid agencies should: 
 ensure that legal and policy frameworks adopt an approach to gender that is 
inclusive of men and women and emphasises how gender relationships construct 
gender identity; 
 enable processes of global citizen engagement that support survivors of sexual 
violence to influence international legal frameworks; 
 ensure that ongoing research analysis of conflict-related sexual violence includes the 
issue of sexual violence against men; 
 provide increased funding to address sexual and gender-based violence in conflict-
affected settings, to strengthen prevention and response for all survivors. 
NGOs and national implementing service providers should: 
 examine their policies and services to determine whether they are inclusive of male 
survivors, sensitive to their needs, and empowering; 
 develop training to support humanitarian service providers to ensure more inclusive 
approaches to addressing conflict-related sexual violence; 
 provide help and mentorship in situations where support groups do not exist; 
 strengthen and foster the capacities of refugee-led support groups. 
Researchers in gender and sexuality, in organisational strategies and citizenship 
should: 
 develop new approaches to addressing sexual violence with refugee groups of male 
survivors of violence (action research can open up possibilities of new learning); 
 conduct participatory action research to support new strategies; 
 assist service providers by focusing on adapting psychosocial models for individual 
and group healing, moving away from simple rehabilitation and reintegration. 


Therapeutic Activism: Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda Breaking the Silence over Male Rape in Conflict-related Sexual Violence

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/162470/1/ER182_TherapeuticActivismMenofHopeRefugeeAssociationUgandaBreakingtheSilenceoverMaleRapeinConflictrelatedSexualViolence.pdf

Therapeutic activism : Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda breaking the silence over male rape in conflict-related sexual violence

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