Journalists For Justice is a not-for-profit foundation registered in The Hague (Stiftung Journalists for Justice) and working to advance improved African journalistic capacity for social justice causes and accountability through training and effective online platforms and social media engagement.

Established in 2011 as a project by the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, (ICJ-Kenya), JFJ has promoted a balanced discussion of the international criminal justice system in the media and advocated justice and reparations for victims of violence.

The project has grown beyond Kenya and spread its work to Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, The Gambia, Burundi, Uganda and the Central African Republic.

Through public information and outreach programmes, media training; media monitoring and research; media advocacy; content development and dissemination, JFJ continues to contribute to the struggle to give victims of atrocity crimes voice and agency.

The Victims’ Bantaba is a virtual platform that will serve as a memorial site of record to events and experiences from The Gambia’s difficult years during the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh.

It seeks to document the impact of the violations of human rights and atrocity crimes over the 22 years of that regime, particularly on the victims, and explore their continuing significance on the society.

The website has been set up by Journalists For Justice (JFJ), in collaboration with the Gambia Centre for Victims of Human Rights Violations. The interactive online platform will be curated by JFJ, victims, survivors and their families, alongside partner organisations.

The memorialisation seeks to honour the victims of the violations as well as examine past injustices that led up to that situation, while at the same time clarifying contemporary issues that continue to confront victims.

Professionalism: For JFJ, professionalism means observing the highest standards of ethics in its work; and the desire to build a just, peaceful and prosperous African continent free of conflict and impunity for grave crimes.

Independence: JFJ will always act independently and in a politically non-partisan manner.

Integrity: In a media landscape where powerful individuals often use their resources to compromise the media to advance their interests, JFJ places a high value on integrity for its staff and partners to uphold accuracy, balance and fairness of their reports.

Victim-centredness: JFJ was established to fill the gap left by skewed media reporting of the Kenya cases at the ICC where powerful suspects had instrumentalised the media to push their interests to the exclusion of the concerns of victims. JFJ therefore deliberately chose an approach to programming that gave voice to the interests and concerns of victims. This remains a core value of JFJ.

Courage: JFJ operates in an environment that is dominated by powerful interests who use their money and power to influence public discourse in a way that is favourable to them. In this context, JFJ has summoned up the courage to speak truth to power by taking on and publicising sensitive subjects that other media houses have dared not to touch in order to avoid offending these powerful interests. This courage distinguishes JFJ from many mainstream media houses.