In his opening address to this weeks’ Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in Doha, the UN Secretary-General said three simple words that resonate deeply with the work of the Global Survivors Fund: “corruption fuels conflict.”
For those of us working to ensure that survivors of conflict-related sexual violence can access reparations, this statement is not abstract. It demands that we look closely at how asset recovery and return are operationalised in conflict, post-conflict, and fragile settings – and, critically, at how victims can actually benefit from asset return.
The impact of corruption on victims in conflict
When corruption fuels conflict, it translates into detention, torture, sexual violence, and the systematic destruction of human lives.
One concrete example comes from Syria. A report by our survivor-led partner organisation, the Association of Detainees and the Missing of Sednaya Prison, documents that since 2011 the Assad regime confiscated an estimated USD 1.5 billion in assets from detainees. At the same time as tens of thousands of people were arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, tortured, and sexually violated, their homes, savings, and businesses were seized. Families paid bribes in desperate attempts to secure the release of their loved ones.
Many of those who endured these crimes do not describe themselves as victims of corruption- and yet they are.
Reparations are unaffordable?
Survivors of these crimes have a right to remedy and reparation under international law. This means access to medical care and psychosocial support, education, restitution, apologies, and compensation through a survivor centred process; remedies that enable victims to rebuild their lives in dignity.
Yet victims and survivors are repeatedly told that reparations are unaffordable. From their perspective, this claim rings hollow. Vast amounts of illicit wealth generated through corruption and other grave crimes are hidden, protected, or frozen abroad, while survivors are told there is “no money” for the reparations they are owed. That money did not disappear. It sustained systems of corruption and repression – systems in which conflict-related sexual violence, detention and torture were not incidental, but instrumental.
When asset recovery and return fail to materialise, and reparations remain unfunded, that absence itself becomes part of the ongoing harm survivors endure.
Survivors are watching and organising
This is why survivors are taking a stand.
GSF is supporting the convening of the Asset Recovery for Justice Working Group, bringing together Syrian survivor groups, civil society organisations, and international actors to develop concrete calls for the recovery and return of proceeds of corruption held worldwide, with the explicit purpose of funding reparations.
Survivors and affected communities are watching closely. This working group – and wider victim groups, from Ukraine to Cox’s Bazar – are following legal and policy developments related to asset recovery. They are tracking France’s domestic legislation facilitating the return of ill-gotten assets, the transposition of EU Directives on Asset Recovery and Confiscation that encourage the reuse of confiscated assets for public and social purposes, and discussions concerning assets held under sanctions regimes and within the international financial system, including those managed through international financial institutions such as the World Bank. They are asking one central question: will these assets be used to invest in victims’ and survivors’ futures?
Asset recovery and return can rebuild lives and trust
When asset recovery and return are used to fund reparations, they send a powerful signal: that victims’ futures matter – that their health, their dignity, their human capital, and the social fabric of their communities matters.
This is not only about addressing past harms, although for many survivors, who may never receive the day in court they are due, it may represent one of the few remaining pathways to a sense of accountability and justice. It is also about peacebuilding, rebuilding trust in institutions, and breaking cycles of violence.
This requires a deliberate choice for the States Parties attending the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) COSP11 last week. It requires crossing the rubicon of identifying ‘victims’ only as those directly linked to corruption; of understanding ‘social reuse’ of assets as wider than infrastructure projects alone; of not deprioritising individuals when collective projects seem like the easier route; and of no longer accepting decades-long delays in asset return. Instead, asset recovery must focus on the most vulnerable people, on what actually happened in contexts of conflict and fragility, and on embedding survivors’ lived realities into decisions about asset return.
Three calls to action
The Global Survivors Fund, along with many civil society organisations present at the UNCAC, call on States Parties to:
- Ensure victims are broadly defined, so that survivors of corruption-enabled human rights violations can benefit from asset recovery and return;
- Prioritise those in the most vulnerable situations, who are often the first victims of corruption and face its most devastating consequences;
- Champion systematic cooperation between anti-corruption and human rights bodies, at both UN and national levels, so that asset recovery delivers not only financial integrity, but justice.
If corruption fuels conflict, then asset recovery must help fund reparations – by investing in victims and survivors.