Sexual Violence and Trauma in Conflict: Rethinking the Cost of War

Zainab Hawa Bangura, the Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, will address wartime rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence as a “cost-free” and devastating weapon of war. She will discuss her visits to the Middle East and how ISIS uses sexual violence against women from Yazidi, Christian, and Turkmen Shia minorities as a “tactic of terrorism.” She will focus on her UN mandate challenging impunity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan and the psycho-social support needed for survivors of violence in countries ranging from Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, DRC, Somalia and the Central African Republic.