The eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been called the worst areas in the world to be a woman or child. For the past 15 years, women and girls in the region have suffered mass sexual violence on an unimaginable scale, perpetrated by the Congolese army, rebels, militias, and others. Impunity has been the rule, and simply finding courtrooms and judges is next to impossible beyond the provincial capitals. In response, the Open Society Foundations have supported the creation of mobile gender courts able to properly try rape cases. The courts have brought a measure of justice—and dignity—to victims and demonstrate that, with modest support, local institutions can respond even under the most challenging circumstances. The above photo, of a local police station holding cell for a mobile court, is from the Open Society report Justice in DRC: Mobile Courts Combat Rape and Impunity in Eastern Congo.

People who use drugs often face stigma and discrimination when trying to get basic health care. Based in St. Petersburg—a city where 70 percent of HIV cases are the result of injecting drug use—the Humanitarian Action Fund fights for the health and human rights of injecting drug users, as well as other marginalized groups such as sex workers, migrants, and street children. The organization, a grantee of the Open Society Foundations, operates a mobile clinic on a refurbished bus that travels to areas where drug users live and buy drugs. For the last decade, the bus has been a light in the dark, offering clean needles and syringes, alcohol swabs, condoms, psychological counseling, blood testing, basic medical services, and information about safer injecting, HIV, and hepatitis.