Sexual Violence

By Scott Weiner, Policy Analyst, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Saudi Arabia’s approach to women’s rights prioritizes form over function. The changes it has implemented are not insignificant, but they fail to address a legal system premised on the treatment of women as second-class citizens. That system of religious guardianship treats women as legal […]

By Hannah Proctor, Research Fellow, WIIS Global September 9, 2019 The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda was created with the intention of acknowledging and counteracting the disproportionate effects of conflict on women and girls. This has resulted in an emphasis on the need to protect women and girls from suffering those effects, especially those of […]

18 December 2018 By: Alicia Luedke The irony is stark. Just as UN bodies, humanitarian agencies and civil society organizations started to “orange the world” with various activities commemorating the ‘16 Days of GBV [gender-based violence] activism’ in South Sudan, young men in both civilian clothing and military uniforms brutally attacked and raped an estimated […]

By Grace Ndirangu and Pearl Atuhaire The Missing Peace Young Scholars Network (MPSN) is an initiative of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Women in International Security (WIIS), the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), and the University of California, Berkley Human Rights Center. The MPSN is a platform for scholars to discuss, learn, […]

By Alicia Luedke The incident at Terrain Hotel in the capital of South Sudan, Juba in July of this year, in which a number of aid workers were raped by government soldiers highlighted the risks that aid workers, particularly female aid workers face in high-risk areas. This is by no means intended to overshadow the horrific […]

By Kelsey Campbell November 25, 2014 Originally published in the Huffington Post. November 25th is designated by the United Nations to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The day, based on the anniversary of the 1960 assassination of the three Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic by dictator Rafael Trujillo, […]

Trying to create a more sustainable peace while ignoring over half the population is a recipe for failure, especially when “women’s agency, their creativity and patience, and their capacity to love and to build consensus… make women a valuable constituency for peace”, as Lakshmi Puri, the Deputy Director of UN Women, observed. It was with these goals in mind that women from around the world met in June 2014 at the Better Peace Symposium.

“The greatest strategic prize for our century is the full social, political and economic empowerment of women everywhere” declared William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, at the end of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict last week.

By Jelke Boesten Since the late 1990s, the international community has developed treaties and tools to address conflict-related sexual violence. Most recently, the UK government has been promoting the Foreign Secretary’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PVSI), and has organised a Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, scheduled for June. These are positive developments […]