Finally, sexual violence in war has been recognized as a pressing global security problem in policy and research. Yet, much still needs to be done to better understand its dynamics and to more effectively work towards its prevention. The overarching category of sexual violence remains imprecise as a legal and policy tool, and potentially misleading as a common category for a vast array of acts in disparate contexts, driven by different logics, and with different effects. Drawing on the unique expertise of the research team and focusing its inquiry to the Great Lakes region in Africa, the aim of this research project is to further query and comprehend the variations in conflict-related sexual violence against women/girls and men/boys in this site. The project asks four interrelated research questions: 1) What are the dominant forms; 2) prevailing contexts; 3) logics of sexual violence?; 4) How is sexual violence delineated in legal, policy and academic texts? It will answer these questions by: analysing documented sexual violence cases; conducting individual screening, in depth interviews and participatory group research with refugee populations; interviewing ex-combatants and soldiers/combatants convicted of sexual violence; analyzing legal, policy and academic texts. Ultimately, it will contribute to general knowledge about conflict-related sexual violence, and provide a more nuanced picture against which comparisons with other conflict and non-conflict settings can be made.