 Support for victims of psychological counselling violence including medical services and 176. Since 2009, in the DRC, the means of combating gender-based violence are defined in the National Strategic Paper for Combating Gender-based Violence developed by MINIGEFAE. This strategy, as mentioned above, includes an action plan and comprises 5 components. It defines the government policy in the fight against the VSBG. However, the evaluation of this strategy two years after its development and its implementation has revealed that it focused on sexual violence leaving other forms of violence; the same is true of the various actions or activities planned and implemented, most of which partly concern the provinces in the Eastern part of the country which experienced the atrocities of the warring parties. It is for this reason that the SNVBG is currently being revised to include all forms of violence in the new strategy and actions to be carried out throughout the country. 177. Support for victims of violence, whether sexual or domestic, is therefore done within the framework of the SNVBG. Several actions have been carried out in recent years on the basis of the various components of the said strategy. The objective of the multisectoral assistance component was to facilitate access of the survivors of sexual violence to essential services. Through this component, the provision of psycho-social, medical care and economic reintegration of the survivors has been ensured. Listening centres in urban areas and listening houses within the communities have been set up to promote early warning of sexual violence. PEP kits have been provided in several healthcare centres of the country, the socio-economic and educational reintegration of survivors has also been provided. Legal assistance is provided through the creation of specific units dealing with sexual violence within the State administrative courts. 178. T h e ‘ ‘ D a t a a n d M a p p i n g ’’ component was to facilitate the collection, processing, storage, analysis and sharing of information on sexual violence. To date, an integrated database is available at the Ministry of Women, Family and Children’s Affairs and field actors provide inputs. This database makes it possible to publish annual reports on incidences of violence occurring in the various provinces and on the means to control them. 179. In 2014, the report revealed 19,937 incidences of sexual and gender-based violence reported in 2013 in 7 provinces of the country (East and West of the country) out of a total of 11 provinces. Among these, 63.1% have received psychosocial assistance, 52.7% medical assistance and 21.9% have received legal and judicial assistance. Insufficient financial resources are the root cause of this low level of care which has declined compared with the year 2012 w h e r e 9 2 % o f survivors received medical assistance and 79% psychosocial assistance. 3. RIGHTS RELATING TO MARRIAGE (ARTICLES 6-7) 180.Article 40 (1) of the Constitution of the DRC recognizes that every individual has the right to marry the person of his choice, of the opposite sex and to start a family. In addition, Article 330 of the Congolese family code, an authoritative legal instrument regulating all issues relating to marriage, defines marriage as “a civil, public and solemn act through which a man and a woman who are not bound by a previous registered marriage establish a legal and lasting union whose conditions, effects and dissolution are determined by law.” This is to say that marriage is a personal act in which each of the future spouses must give their consent; this consent is free, express and received by the civil registrar. According to the spirit of this Article, a marriage cannot take place if the two parties do not give their consent. 181.However, according to the customs in the hinterland, unions like abduction, forced and early marriage as well as preferential and endogamous marriage still exist. These customary practices which fly in the face of the law still makes the DRC one of the countries in the world where the birth rate among adolescents remains high (25% according to the State of the World Population Report 2013) .. 182.The term union encompasses civil marriage, religious and customary marriage as well as de 40