On February 5, Jane Freedman, Universite de Paris 8, France, discussed sexual and gender-based violence in the context of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She explained the current state of the DRC, where NGO’s and the United Nations are investing huge amounts of money into programs to combat gender-based violence, without solving the problem, nor contributing to a solution. She noted that gender-based violence was seen as normal in times of conflict, but that feminist movements had broken silence on the subject and put the issues on the international agenda.

She also placed her discussion into how control of other issues such as toxic masculinity and the way that sensationalism and racial colonial imagery de-historicizes and removes the conflict from it’s socioeconomic and political context. She concluded with the thought that while this issue often feels unsolvable, there are strides being made in the right direction through reframing the international agenda.