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  • Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa by Milli Lake
  • Ashley E. Leinweber
Milli Lake. Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. v–303 pp. US$99.99 (cloth). ISBN 9781108419376.

Known as the "rape capital of the world," the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo or DRC) is notorious for the prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence. While Strong NGOs and Weak States provides a detailed empirical account of the challenges and successes of seeking justice for gender violence in local courts in both DRC and South Africa, it also offers much-needed nuanced analysis of theoretical concepts such as sovereignty, intervention, and state fragility.

As the title suggests, Lake is situating her work in the fragile states literature common to scholars of post-conflict DR Congo. Her overarching argument is counter-intuitive because one would imagine that strong states provide robust justice through their effective institutions. Strong NGOs, however, argues that "state fragility in eastern DR Congo has, in fact, created openings for NGOs and other non-state actors to exert considerable influence over judicial processes in ways that prove impossible in stronger state environments" (p. 131). Part I of the book succeeds in supporting this assertion through a comparison of the effectiveness of gender justice in local courts in DRC, a notoriously fragile state, against its ineffectiveness in much stronger South Africa.

Chapter 2 delves into research methods and the immense difficulty of conducting empirical research in both a post-conflict setting and with a vulnerable population. Beyond demonstrating the extensive nature of the data collected, this is an excellent source for PhD students preparing to embark on fieldwork in precarious settings. The images on pages 55 and 58 provide a clear representation of not just the difficulty of data collection in fragile states, but also the added complication of [End Page 128] researching in areas of insecurity. Lake provides an honest discussion of the difficult decisions one must make in the field when unforeseen challenges arrive, such as your field site suddenly being occupied by the M23 rebel group. In addition, the book is exemplary for new scholars in its interrogation of researchers' ethical considerations related to conducting interviews with victims of trauma. For additional logistical issues, one can see Appendix A where the author describes methods related to confidentiality, consent, and language, while Appendix B delves further into the ethics of researching sexual violence victims.

The history of gender-related legal instruments at both international and domestic levels in DR Congo and South Africa is the subject of chapter 3. In furthering her argument about state fragility, Lake describes how in the immediate post-apartheid period, an opening existed for domestic and international NGOs to influence gender laws in South Africa. However, as the democratic nation became more institutionalized, those opportunities were no longer available. In the DRC, however, "the scale of international intervention in tasks normally reserved for domestic governments (such as passage of laws, control over budgets, and development of policy priorities), as well as the money poured into these enterprises, have been both justified and enabled by the empirical reality that the Congolese state had consistently proved itself unable to manage and oversee the activities of its own justice sector" (p. 86).

The bulk of empirical data for the two cases is presented in chapters 4 and 5. In South Africa, data come primarily from the Western Cape townships of Khayelitsha and Gugulehu, while in DR Congo research was conducted in the eastern North and South Kivu provinces. Through an examination of over two hundred cases in South Africa, Lake demonstrates that judges do not follow the 2007 Sexual Offences Act, but instead continue to thwart mandatory minimum sentences, deny the credibility of victim testimony, and allow questioning of victim's clothing choices and previous sexual history. In contrast, in eastern DRC, judges are well versed in not only domestic law, but frequently refer to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in large part due to training efforts by NGOs.

Chapter 5 explores...

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