The Inaugural FPA- SUNY Global Engagement Program Lecture, with Zainab Hawa Bangura (Video)

Please join the Foreign Policy Association and the SUNY Global Engagement Program for the inaugural lecture of the the FPA-SUNY Global Engagement Program Speaker Series, delivered by Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Opening remarks will be made by Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York System. The lecture will be titled: Sexual Violence as a Tactic of War and Terrorism: a 21st Century Threat.

: Although sexual violence is often described as the “oldest crime of war”, it has by no means been consigned to the annals of history. In fact, it has acquired new and specifically 21st Century dimensions, such as the use of ICT to facilitate the trafficking, trading and sexual slavery of women and girls as part of the political economy of conflict and terrorism; connections with rising violent extremism and the use of forced marriage, forced impregnation, and forced abortion by an array of non-State actors who have no regard for international law, international legitimacy, or national borders, but are waging their wars on the bodies of women in order to populate or alter the demographics of contested territory (ISIL, Boko Haram, Ansar Eddine, Al-Shabaab, etc.); the current mass migration crisis, which elevates the risk of SV throughout the displacement cycle, even in places of supposed refuge, etc.; and long-silenced issues such as the use of sexual violence against men and boys, and the marginalization of children born of wartime rape, which are just beginning to attract international attention and scrutiny. The international community has, accordingly, re-framed conflict-related sexual violence to understand that it is not merely individual, interpersonal violence, but has wider political, military and economic drivers, as well as the underlying structural driver of gender-based discrimination in law, policy, and institutional practice, as well as in socio-cultural norms and taboos. Following this normative shift, political, operational and programmatic progress has been made in terms of protection, prevention and accountability, with the United Nations working primarily in support of relevant national authorities, but also in terms of peacekeeper training, resource-mobilization, and political advocacy to expand the reach of multisectoral services to survivors. These efforts are spearheaded by the mandate-holder, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, whose office was established by the Security Council in 2009. 

SUNY Global Center

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2016-08-15 13:34:17

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