In the past years, some members of the EFRJ Working Group on Gender-Based Violence worked on an unique project. They collected testimonies of people that experienced sexual violence and were offered, and sometimes even participated in, a restorative justice programme.
These eight stories have been published in "From Survivors to Survivors: Conversations on restorative justice in cases of sexual violence" (2023) in an interview format, to give a voice to the protagonists and their lived experiences of restorative justice.
The contributions reflect a wide range of offences, such as sexual assault by a person known to the victim/survivor, sexual assault/rape by a stranger, inter-familial abuse perpetrated by male family members (i.e.brother, father, step-father and a grandfather), and stalking. Despite their complexity and serious harm, each story shares a lot of wisdom in the authors’ search for justice, support and empowerment.
Most of the testimonies included in this publication are from women, which reflects international statistics on sexual offences. For this reason, we chose 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) as the day to organise the launch event of this publication.
The editors, as well as some of the authors and other invited guests, will present the publication, its challenges and opportunities, and reflect on the next steps forward to advance the use of restorative justice in complex and serious cases such as sexual violence.
