Intermediaries play a vital role in assembling information and bringing forward victims to help prosecute war crimes suspects in the Hague.
Lawyers representing victim of war crimes rely on intermediaries on the ground to facilitate outreach and provide a vital information link.
While the International Criminal Court (ICC) offers protection services to both prosecution and defense witnesses, intermediaries are left to fend for themselves.
Intermediaries, often activists, are now being threatened. In one case, Kinshasa lawyer Carine Bapita who represents victims in a case against Thomas Lubanga said she had to fly one of her intermediaries out of the DRC because of the threats.
In another case, Women's Initiative for Gender Justice had to relocate activists involved in ICC cases when DRC militias began targeting them.
In Darfur, intermediaries are facing threats on a daily basis.
"Even if we could reach them ourselves, we would put victims at risk by talking to them directly.We need an intermediary who is not only an interpreter, but a country person who understands the geography of Darfur and how the conflict unfolded," Wanda Akin, a representative of Darfur victims in the United States told IWPR reporter Katy Glassboro.
