Access with a Price: Gendered Gatekeeping and Feminist Accountability Across Humanitarian Service Pathways in DRC

Humanitarian assistance and protection services in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are lifelines for displaced and impoverished households, yet access can be shaped by gendered power and discretionary control. Drawing on a multi-site qualitative case study with 48 participants, participant-led service journey maps, and document review, this article examines registration and list-making, distribution encounters, and complaint, referral, and case-management processes. Findings show that administrative procedures can become moralized tests of deservingness, producing informal fees, humiliation, and coercive bargaining. Complaint mechanisms were experienced as risky when the same actors or networks influenced both eligibility and redress, making voice potentially costly for future access. Women and girls responded through calibrated silence, intermediaries, group accompaniment, provider switching, and selective disengagement. The article advances a pathway-level feminist accountability agenda centered on transparent access rules, safe correction, non-coercive relational practice, independent remedy, sideways accountability, and community-trusted oversight.