For more than 35 years, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has worked at the intersection of medicine, science, and law to end human suffering, save lives, and secure justice and universal human rights for all. Read about our impact in our 2022 Annual Report.

As we mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we continue to challenge ourselves to understand what works and what doesn’t, using rigorous, scientific, and trauma-informed approaches.  

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes the International Criminal Court (ICC) Appeals Chamber decision to uphold the conviction of Bosco Ntaganda for 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 2002 and 2003. Significantly, the Appeals Chamber also confirmed Ntaganda’s 30-year sentence, rejecting every […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes a Congolese military court’s conviction of Ntabo Ntaberi, whose Nduma Defense of Congo (NDC) militia was responsible for terrorizing communities in Eastern DRC for years.   Sheka was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of war crimes, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, enlisting children under the age of 15, looting, and destruction of property. Among his many atrocities, Sheka and the NDC […]

Dr Lwanzo Pablo est médecin chef de Zone de santé de Butembo au Nord Kivu dans la République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Cette zone, qui dessert plus de 200 000 habitants, a été touché par la dixième épidémie de la maladie à Virus Ebola en RDC. Read in English here. L’épidémie de la maladie à […]

Dr. Pablo Lwanzo is the head doctor of the Butembo Health Zone in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This zone, home to more than 200,000 people, was recently the site of the tenth Ebola epidemic in the DRC. Dr. Lwanzo spoke to PHR about how the lessons of combatting Ebola can inform […]

Read English version here. En tant que partenaire de longue date du Dr Denis Mukwege, chirurgien congolais renommé, co-lauréat du prix Nobel de la paix 2018,  fondateur et directeur médical de l’hôpital de Panzi, dans la province du Sud-Kivu en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) appelle de toute urgence à […]

Read French version here. As a longstanding partner of Dr. Denis Mukwege – the renowned Congolese surgeon, 2018 Nobel Prize for Peace co-laureate, and Founder and Medical Director of Panzi Hospital, South Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is urgently appealing for immediate action to protect […]

Lire en francais. For many years, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been combatting gender-based violence and particularly sexual violence related to the armed conflicts that have afflicted the country for more than two decades. While political forces and members of civil society have together made strides on this issue in recent years, the […]

Depuis plusieurs années, la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) lutte contre les violences basées sur le genre et plus spécifiquement les violences sexuelles liées aux conflits armés, qui ont marqué le pays pendant plus de deux décennies. Tandis que les forces politiques et les différentes plateformes de la société civile s’étaient résolues à avancer sur […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentencing of Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC today announced the sentence of 30 years in prison, the longest sentence to date by the court. In July, Ntaganda was found guilty of 13 counts of war […]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Human Rights Coalition recognized Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) as the 2019 Science and Human Rights Innovator for its trailblazing MediCapt app. MediCapt is a mobile application that helps clinicians more effectively collect, document, and securely store forensic medical evidence of sexual violence to […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) conviction of Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda, who was found guilty for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

NEW YORK – This week, The Lancet, the prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal, published a Viewpoint describing how a collaboration among Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Panzi General Reference Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and other medical-legal partners helped bring long-delayed justice to dozens of young Congolese girls who were raped by […]

This post originally appeared on OpenGlobalRights. It’s not uncommon to see Post-Rape Care (PRC) forms, the standardized medical intake document for sexual violence in Kenya, scattered across clinicians’ desks and counters in hospitals throughout the country. These PRC forms include the survivor’s history, a report of the incident, the results of a physical examination, and […]

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 40 young girls – some as young as 18 months – were taken from their homes and raped in the South Kivu village of Kavumu during a three-year reign of terror beginning in 2013. The perpetrators kidnapped the children in the dead of night, assaulted them, […]

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 40 young girls – some as young as 18 months – were taken from their homes and raped in the South Kivu village of Kavumu during a three-year reign of terror beginning in 2013. The perpetrators kidnapped the children in the dead of night, assaulted them, […]

Our partnership works to help strengthen the capacity of clinicians to improve the collection of forensic medical evidence of sexual violence.

Rape is a horrifying reality for all too many women and girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where decades of conflict have produced one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world, and where cultural norms and weak institutions have worked together to largely silence survivors of these devastating crimes. […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes today’s appeal judgment delivered by the High Military Court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), confirming the conviction of 11 men, including a provincial lawmaker, who were found guilty in a 2017 trial of crimes against humanity for the rape of dozens of young girls as well […]

MediCapt’s step-by-step interface ensures that clinicians document all critical information when evaluating survivors of sexual violence. Photo: Adriane Ohanessian for Physicians for Human Rights. PHR’s award-winning mobile app MediCapt enables doctors, clinical officers, and nurses to collect, store, and securely share forensic medical evidence in cases of sexual violence. The app has already been field-tested […]

The little girl was so severely injured that the surgeon who attended her, a veteran clinician accustomed to treating survivors of sexual violence, was shocked. Just five years old, the child was one of dozens of young girls who were raped during a three-year reign of terror in the village of Kavumu in eastern Democratic […]

For Immediate Release In an extraordinary and landmark ruling, 11 Congolese militia members were convicted today of crimes against humanity for murder and the rape of 37 young children. The verdict represents a stunning victory for the victims, their families, their community of Kavumu, where the crimes occurred, for the wide array of organizations that […]