In 2004, a group of Irish development and
human rights NGOs1 came together at the
initiative of Amnesty International with
Development Cooperation Ireland to
discuss how best to respond to the terrible
reality of very high levels of rape being
reported in the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.
What quickly became clear to the group was that the problem
must be looked at beyond one very high profile example, and
that the aim of the group should be to identify how best to
develop institutional capacity to respond on a systematic basis
to gender based violence (GBV).