A/HRC/17/22 A. Panel 1: Challenges, good practices and opportunities in investigating cases of violence against women 6. The first panel comprised Françoise Roth, director of the NGO Corporación Punto de Vista; Serena Tiberia, Human Rights Officer from the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Gillian Holmes, Senior Adviser in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. 7. Ms. Roth presented reflections around the topic of information and data gathering and analysis resulting from a study conducted in 2010 by her organization and the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group on sexual violence in Colombia. She said that sexual violence in the Colombian armed conflict had not been perpetrated massively, but had been used strategically over decades. Hundreds of cases of sexual violence had been documented, mainly by women’s organizations, but until recently the issue had remained silenced. Nevertheless, the information gathered so far could not support the inference that conflict-related sexual violence had been widespread and systematic in Colombia. 8. Ms. Roth explained that the analysis of what kind of data exists or is absent, and how it is constructed and used, offers insight on how an issue is perceived, understood and dealt with. In Colombia, data-gathering efforts showed politicization around human rights violations. She added that existing statistics about sexual violence were strongly influenced by the perception that it is a domestic issue and/or a criminal justice problem to be dealt with from a purely legal perspective. This resulted in data collection being constrained by the legal definitions of both “sexual” and “violence” and information not necessary for judicial purposes not being systematically gathered or registered. Ms. Roth also emphasized access to information as an essential element to conduct a reliable analysis of sexual violence. In the context of the study, despite provisions in the Colombian Constitution1, accessing information from the military establishment and governmental agencies, in particular data related to the armed conflict, proved especially difficult. 9. Ms. Roth pointed out that the interpretation, analysis and use of information on sexual violence presented a number of unique challenges to any investigator, including those stemming from the multiple biases sexual violence is prone to. In the context of the Colombian internal armed conflict, it was also difficult to separate “conflict-related” from “normal” sexual violence. The study’s assessment of available data led to the conclusion that the existing data provided no basis for any quantitative claim about sexual violence in Colombia taking place at a broad population level. In order to craft accurate estimates of patterns of sexual violence, it was essential for researchers to understand the process by which data is collected, the underlying assumptions of their own hypotheses, and the potential limitations and biases of the data. Ms. Roth concluded by advocating for an increased investment in data and information research. 10. Ms. Tiberia presented ideas and impressions from quantitative approaches to the study of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based on numerous interviews with victims and service providers. There is growing attention to sexual violence in the country, with a strong focus on quantitative data and statistics as the main basis for policymaking and limited attention paid to subjective perception of the phenomenon. 1 4 The 1991 Colombian Constitution, as amended in 1997, recognizes the right to individual privacy and recognizes that the citizens shall have “the right to know, access, update and rectify any information gathered about them in databases, both public and private.”