Mission

INOVAS is the international network of victims and survivors of serious human rights abuses. Led by victims and survivors, it links organizations, groups and individuals from across the world, regardless of their colour, race, religion or belief, culture, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or ethnic origin. INOVAS aims to provide victims and survivors with a platform to allow their voices as claim-making agents to be heard. INOVAS facilitates exchanges and reinforces solidarity between victims and survivors worldwide. It advocates for their rights, and helps to strengthen their participation in national, regional and international processes related to justice, human rights, social change and peace.

Our Vision

A world where victims and survivors of serious human rights abuses attain substantive justice and in which our dignity is recognized and our agency validated in the struggle to end cycles of violence, human rights abuses and impunity.

Our Pledge

We, the undersigned members, hereby establish INOVAS as the International Network of Victims and Survivors of serious human rights abuses. This Network grew organically from our fights against historical injustices and continued serious human rights violations. We, victims and survivors, have fought for our rights to justice and dignity in our respective countries, and have come to realize that we need to build an international network to fully achieve our vision. 

We are motivated by our experiences as well as our shared objectives and vision. We oppose institutional violence and repression whether sponsored by state or non-state actors. We work towards peaceful and dignified societies characterized by justice, equality, freedom from oppression, and respect for human rights, where the rights of victims and survivors are fully acknowledged and respected. 

We reject all forms of political, social, economic and environmental injustices, exploitation, oppression, inequality and domination. Our network founders include victims or survivors of a broad range of abuses and injustices including genocide, apartheid, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture, rape and other forms of sexual abuses, murder, extrajudicial killings, persecution on political, racial, national, religious, cultural,  or gender grounds, and deliberate social and economic deprivation. However, our aim is to welcome and support, through the Network, victims and survivors of all grave violations of civil and political rights as well as economic, social, cultural and environmental rights including war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

We commit to embedding a culture of political, social and economic justice and solidarity in the societies we live in, and to demonstrating social responsibility towards each other and all those with whom we interact with.

We commit to supporting victimized and affected people in their struggles to reconstruct their lives and overcome the physical and psychological effects of the abuses they have experienced.

We aim to unite the efforts of victims and survivors so that together we can play an effective and influential role in rebuilding the damaged political, social, economic, cultural and environmental fabric in places that have emerged from violence, widespread discrimination and grave human rights violations.

We commit to actively calling out systems of political, social or economic domination that enable violence and human rights abuses, and to seeking systemic change and reform that would prevent such violence and abuses in the future.   

We commit to building a culture of learning, using the participatory practices of people’s education through which grassroots and community activists collectively learn skills and tools to contribute to improving the quality of life of the people who were affected by the violence and to rebuild social solidarity after such traumatic experiences. 

We commit to address the complex problems that our communities face, by contributing to the restoration of historical consciousness and supporting emancipatory behaviour that transforms social relations and supports the promotion of accountable and responsive governance and socio-political systems.

We commit to respecting the knowledge, experience, wisdom and insights of every person with whom we collaborate in an effort to transform and change the dominant model and practice of (transitional) justice, in which victims and survivors are often treated as passive beneficiaries of a process devised by others.  

We commit to building networks of solidarity between and amongst our members and with those in our societies with whom we share a common purpose. 

We commit to building a culture of open communication to facilitate relationships of trust and interpersonal safety and skills for the constructive handling of disagreements. We commit to practices of healthy communication and respect for confidentiality.

We commit to the practice of truth-telling as well as to hearing the truth within our Network, regardless of the discomfort it may cause, as we move forward together as diverse peoples and communities.

We commit to building alliances and relationships of equals with those who genuinely seek to support our cause, and to engaging with those, at the national, regional and international levels, who are involved in processes that deal with or impact on our rights in order to share with them our vision, experience and knowledge and to develop two-way collaborations. 

Our Objectives

INOVAS aims to re-empower victims and survivors by:

  1. Amplifying victims’ and survivors’ voices, creating safe spaces, and protecting those in danger as a result of their activism;
  2. Recognizing victims’ and survivors’ needs, aspirations and rights, and advocating for justice through their direct participation in the formulation of policies in national, regional, and international fora;
  3. Building and preserving a knowledge base of historical memory that includes the perspectives of victims and survivors;
  4. Promoting and advocating for justice with national, regional and international   bodies by educating policymakers and political actors;
  5. Promoting transcontinental solidarity, linking interregional networks, and supporting national/grassroots movements in their search for justice, truth, accountability, reparations, memory and prevention, and
  6. Contributing to the transformation of the structural political, social and economic conditions responsible for serious human rights abuses, social injustices and inequalities.