July 31, 2025—Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ) welcomes the International Criminal Court’s conviction of Alfred Yékatom and Patrice‑Edouard Ngaïssona as well as the Chamber’s decision to deliver sentencing concurrently with the judgment, an important measure of justice for victims of Anti‑Balaka crimes in the Central African Republic.

At the same time, we are deeply concerned by the absence of convictions for sexual and gender‑based violence (SGBV), despite extensive documentation of rape and sexual slavery by multiple parties to the conflict since 2013.

The Chamber itself recognizes that conflict‑related sexual violence is not “an ‘exceptional’ occurrence in armed conflicts” (para. 4130). Yet it simultaneously concludes it cannot establish that rape formed part of the ordinary course of the Anti‑Balaka attack on Bossangoa for purposes of Mr Ngaïssona’s liability, despite finding that an Anti‑Balaka fighter raped P‑2462 during that very attack (paras. 4130-4131). 

This disconnect risks re‑exceptionalising sexual violence and gender-based crimes in the context of accountability seeking: survivors are believed, but the crime is treated as insufficiently predictable to attribute awareness to senior actors. 

If killings, forced displacement, and attacks on religious sites are recognized as “ordinary course” occurrences flowing from Anti‑Balaka operations, there must be a principled explanation for carving out sexual violence, especially where the Chamber expressly rejects the notion that such violence is exceptional.

Looking forward, we urge comprehensive understandings of gender-based violence crimes that move beyond the longstanding narrative of their occurrence as an inevitable collateral damage of the conflict or war. 

Furthermore, we urge the Office of the Prosecutor to fully operationalize its Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution (2023) and to charge, plead, and litigate the full spectrum of sexual violence, as reflected in The Hague Principles on Sexual Violence, from the outset of investigations through trial. Doing so is essential to ensure that survivors’ experiences are visible in charges, reflected in convictions, and translated into gender‑sensitive reparations.

We stand with survivors and affected communities in CAR. We will continue to press for comprehensive accountability at the ICC so that gender‑based crimes are neither minimized nor left without remedy.

Image: Alfred Yekatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona during the verdict before the International Criminal Court on 24 July 2025 ©ICC-CPI