A survivor deciding whether to speak is making a decision about their own safety, and they can only make it with information most interviewers forget to give.
What they must be told, before anything is recorded.
- Who you are and who you are not. If you are not a prosecutor, a court, or an aid agency, say so at the start.
- What will happen to the account: where it is stored, who can see it, whether it is likely to be used, and the honest answer that it may lead nowhere at all.
- That they may stop at any point, refuse any question, and ask for the recording to be destroyed.
- The risk. A named account can reach the people the account is about.
Consent is that conversation. It is not a signature, it is not implied by somebody agreeing to sit down, and it is not given once for all time.
Never promise protection, relocation, money, medical care, a prosecution or a timescale. A promise that is not kept is remembered as another betrayal, and it is the reason the next person will not speak to anybody.
Minimise retelling. Ask first whether they have already given an account, and to whom. If a usable account exists, take that instead. Each repetition costs the person and degrades the material.
The setting. Private, with nobody who might be implicated or protective present unless the survivor asks for them. A qualified interpreter, not a relative. Ask about the gender of the interviewer and interpreter rather than assuming. Enough time that nobody is rushed.
Afterwards. Know, before you start, what support you can point to locally. An interview that opens something and leaves nowhere to take it is a harm that was avoidable.
Security of what you now hold. Names, places, phone numbers and faces. Encrypted, minimal, and not on a device that crosses a border unexamined.
Source. The Murad Code — Global Code of Conduct for Gathering and Using Information about Systematic and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, https://www.muradcode.com/murad-code ; OHCHR, Istanbul Protocol (revised), https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/2022-06-29/Istanbul-Protocol_Rev2_EN.pdf ; OHCHR, The Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/MinnesotaProtocol.pdf
What this is not. The association does not investigate crimes and does not take evidence. This is background for members who may be present when somebody wants to speak, so that what happens next does no additional harm.