Perceptions about survivors of sexual violence in eastern DRC: Conflicting descriptive and community-prescribed norms

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has one of the largest concentrations of people who have experienced sexual violence in the world. In this article, we use qualitative data to contrast community reactions toward survivors (descriptive norms) with perceptions about what would constitute justice for survivors (prescribed norms). There are noticeable disparities between descriptive norms and prescribed norms regarding community reactions toward survivors of sexual violence. The image of a survivor of sexual violence that emerged from the data is that of a person who should be pitied and who is sick, suffering, often abandoned and neglected, exposed to discrimination, and emotionally disturbed. In contrast to these negative perceptions, community members saw justice for survivors as including compassion, empathy, egalitarian treatment, respect, and protection from taunting and labelling. We drew on the theory of pluralistic ignorance to explain this disparity. The programmatic implications of the findings are discussed.