On 14–16 February the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and SIPRI North America convened a group of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and military and civil society actors to examine the issue of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings.
The event, entitled 'The Missing Peace: Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-conflict Settings,' identified gaps in knowledge and reporting, and explored how to increase the effectiveness of current responses to such violence.
The conference featured a series of panels including International Responses to Sexual Violence, National Responses to Sexual Violence, Perpetrating Sexual Violence, Surviving Sexual Violence, Security from Sexual Violence, Methodological Challenges and Opportunities, and the Concluding Roundtable Discussion.
The keynote speakers included Zainab Hawa Bangura, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Director at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security; Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, Chair of the Nobel Women's Initiative & Co-chair of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict; Patricia Sellers, Special Advisor on International Criminal Law Prosecution Strategies at the International Criminal Court; and Ambassador Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The symposium, which also featured a young scholar exchange forum, was broadcast via the Internet—resources for both participants and media are available online.