Our story

Ram and Karim

Karim often stood outside between the sessions. “Karim was always outside…and I thought maybe there was a problem,” Bhandari remembers. “I tried to talk to him, but because of the language problem we couldn’t say much.”

Neither of the men had a common language, so they started speaking with “smiles, body language, our eyes,” says Abdessalem. “It was an emotional, spiritual connection.”

Over the next couple of years, the two would communicate online through internet translation software or in-person on the sidelines of other conferences. 

“We agreed that in many cases processes did not lead to ensuring the rights of the victims,” says Abdessalem. “that all of these processes didn’t yield results because they weren’t led by the victims themselves, and that’s why we started thinking of this idea for a network that gave a clear definition of victims, their rights, and how victims themselves must create any process for justice and accountability.”

“We found some similarities about how we felt…about how different actors look at us as victims,” explains Bhandari. “First we talked about maybe co-writing some piece to convey our issues with the international community…and about creating a solidarity group.” 

Wadad Ram and Karim- January 2020- The Hague

In 2016, the two met again in Gaziantep at a conference where victims and survivors from around the world would meet Syrian activists who’d fled to Turkey since the beginning of Syria’s 2011 uprising and ensuing conflict. There, along with Abdessalem and Bhandari, were future INOVAS founding members: Ahmad Helmi (from Syria), Wadad Halawani (from Lebanon) and Fatna El Bouih (from Morocco).

It was there that that idea for a global solidarity network for victims and survivors really began to take shape, recalls Abdessalem. 

“That was when we started dreaming of having this network to really help all victims, wherever they are in the world, without their voices being hijacked by others.”

All of the group’s founding members came with their own stories, experiences and challenges as a result of serious rights abuses they had endured. Yet they shared similar experiences of the national and international transitional justice processes. Many felt, like Abdessalem, that their causes had been “hijacked” by national or international actors, and that they, victims and survivors, were sidelined, preventing their contribution from properly guiding future policymaking.

INOVAS became an opportunity to change that, to re-empower victims and survivors.

Founding Members Meeting – The Hague – January 2020

Since then, INOVAS’ founding members have been working hard to prepare for the launch of the network: drawing-up a statute and selecting a name for the network, inviting new members, and democratically electing the network’s board. 

In late January 2020, the full group of founding members—Ahmad Helmi (from Syria), Alicia Partnoy and Antonio Leiva (from Argentina), Karim Abdessalem (from Tunisia), Marjorie Jobson (from South Africa), Miguel Iztep (from Guatemala), Ram Kumar Bhandari (from Nepal) and Wadad Halawani (from Lebanon) —met in The Hague, Netherlands to elaborate on the idea of the network. Over the course of three days, the group’s discussions focused on a range of topics: how to tackle prolonged impunity; how to address the gap between promised reparations and their implementation in practice; how to move from top-down and expert-led transitional justice processes to meaningfully involving survivors; how to share experiences with younger generations and students and communicate brutal and violent stories in a way that they can be heard by the broader public; and how to tackle the dehumanisation of victims.” 

The group agreed on a single vision. INOVAS was born. 

For many in the network, INOVAS represents the culmination of years—and even decades—of activism for the rights of victims and survivors at home and abroad. 

Founding Members Meeting- The Hague – January 2020

Bhandari remembers that first conference in Brussels, and where the network is today. 

“We were all from very local contexts, and then we were all meeting in this big conference in Brussels; we were lost. We had no voice, no claims, no ownership. I felt that our agenda had been hijacked by the bigger, more powerful actors,” he says. “But now, as INOVAS, we’re representing an international voice for victims and survivors to properly represent their agenda with diplomats, donors and governments. That way, I feel we can influence them.”

“It’s not just re-empowering ourselves, it’s re-empowering the entire movement.”