A/HRC/16/27 of crimes against humanity for the rape of seven women in Mulenge on 8 August 2009 to life in prison and ordered them to pay damages. 24. The Government renewed its promise to honour the many commitments it made during the universal periodic review to combat sexual violence,14 including its commitment to implement the 2006 laws and national strategy and allocate more resources to prevention, training, the suppression of sexual violence and assistance to victims. I hope that these commitments will be translated as soon as possible into practical measures on the part of the Government. Actions taken by the Joint Human Rights Office 25. The Joint Human Rights Office continued its efforts to combat sexual violence during the reporting period. It continued to monitor and follow up on cases of sexual violence perpetrated in the country and to give its support to the judicial authorities to help them prosecute the perpetrators of such acts. For example, between January and October 2010, the Office supported the judicial authorities by helping them investigate more than 100 rape cases. 26. A project to shore up the campaign against the impunity of perpetrators of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was inaugurated officially on 1 May 2010. The project is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and implemented by the Joint Human Rights Office. It covers the provinces of Kasaï-Occidental, Kasaï-Oriental, Bas-Congo, Bandundu, Katanga and Kinshasa for a twoyear period. To stop impunity, it seeks to facilitate access by victims of sexual violence to the justice system and to train workers in the judicial system and members of civil society. 27. In the east, the Joint Human Rights Office has continued to implement the judicial and legal facets of the “Fight against Sexual Violence” project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency since 2006. Under this project, 11 legal clinics are now running in the Kivus. Other capacity-building activities are organized under this project. The Office has also helped to train criminal investigators to follow up on the mass rapes and other human rights violations committed by a coalition of rebel groups in Walikale territory from 30 July to 2 August 2010. 28. In addition to the efforts made by my Office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I sent a high-level panel to hear the victims of sexual violence between 30 September and 10 October 2010. The panel’s aim was to consider how victims of sexual violence and the local people involved perceived the responses provided to victims, and in particular to examine the pertinence of the remedies and compensation. To do this, the panel travelled to South Kivu, Orientale province and the province of Equateur. The panel consisted of Ms. Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and chair of the panel, Ms. Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defence of Finland and currently Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court, and Dr. Denis Mukwege, director of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu. The panel members held talks with authorities at the national level (the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and the Ministry of Gender, Family and Children’s Affairs) and local level in the provinces visited. The members noted the call from the victims and other parties concerned for new measures to give victims more direct and targeted access to compensation. Following their visit, panel members will draft a report with 14 GE.11-10197 A/HRC/13/8, para. 94. See, inter alia, recommendation 50. 9