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Check out a new video released by the Global Justice Center of Akila Radhakrishnan, Vice-President and Legal Director of GJC, speaking at the Third Annual Law Women Summit, titled, "Women in Conflict: Gender, Violence, and Peacekeeping," third panel of the day titled, "Women Transforming Spaces of Justice."

Check out a new video released by the Global Justice Center of Grant Shubin, Legal Fellow at GJC, giving a talk on the gaps in international protections of wartime gender violence at the Brooklyn-Queens Chapter of NOW.

Countries around the world have been coming under scrutiny, as it becomes apparent that even with some improvements in women’s rights, violence against women remains alarmingly prevalent. News stories have been inundated with multiple incidents of sexual violence in India, Iraq, Sudan, and the United States. While each country has its own unique narrative in terms of violence towards women; globally, more than one in three women will suffer physical violence and one in ten girls under 18 will be raped. Regardless of individual political or cultural circumstances, the protection and empowerment of women is a global issue.

This week marks the 20^th anniversary of the landmark conference on women in Beijing, and the UN is set to review the successes and failures of women’s rights in the past 20 years. In terms of successes; pre-school age children are now composed of equal numbers of boys and girls, twice as many women operate in legislative bodies than did 20 years ago, and maternal mortality has been halved, (though it must be noted that number would be significantly improved if abortions were provided to women in armed conflict.)

Despite these successes, sexual violence remains an unchanging and constant threat to women and girls. Some countries have yet to outlaw marital rape, and even countries with explicit, binding laws against sexual violence usually outright fail to implement them. If moral incentives are not enough, violence against women and children costs 4 trillion dollars yearly on a global scale. Sexual violence remains largely unpunished and is regularly used as an effective military tool in armed conflicts. It is the responsibility of international bodies such as the UN to change such realities. Furthermore, as it has been noted, it is important the people and media continue to speak about these issues and spread awareness, so that the next 20 years we can look back and see a marked improvement on the lives of women and girls.

Melanne Verveer and Sarah Degnan Kambou, Executive Director of Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and President of the International Center for Research on Women, respectively, recently collaborated to write an article for the Huffington Post. The article details the ways in which adolescent girls are abused within conflict. The piece was unique in that it also offered a rather optimistic view of solutions to the numerous issues facing young women in conflict.

In a world where families, homes, and entire cities are destroyed, young women are often regarded as victims rather than instruments of change. The Global Justice Center promotes the message of Power not Pity and Verveer and Kambou champion a similar goal for girls in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Jordan who survive despite suffering violence and sexual abuse. They also explicitly call upon the international community to assist in making services such as medical treatment and education widely available, saying, “Above all, the global community must help societies marred by conflict and crisis to build up the community’s resilience to resist the further spread or a resurgence of a conflict.”

Verveer and Kambou outline several concepts that would lead to the improvement of the situation for girls in conflict. First, more information must be made available, and furthermore, than information must be accurate and unbiased. Secondly, with that information, the media must present a thorough and responsible view of the situation surrounding the conflict, rather than providing a brief, sensationalist narrative such as the Bring Back Our Girls campaign.  Third, civil society groups, often heavily involved in the aftermath of a conflict, can provide critical evidence and an unparalleled understanding of the situation. Fourth, the international community must work to end impunity for those who perpetrate war crimes like mass rape and forced pregnancy, finally, the girls themselves must be allowed to direct their own lives. As said by Verveer and Kambou, “Let’s not move forward without the active involvement of girls themselves, who, through lived experience, are deeply familiar with difficult and dangerous times, and are knowledgeable about practical solutions that will meet immediate needs and prepare girls for the day when crisis abates and communities rebuild.”