WORKSHOP
< a href="https://www.ictj.org/event/workshop-women-and-girls-conflict-learni ng-lived-experience" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learning from L ived Experience: Hearing from Survivors of Conflict about Gender-Specific Impacts and Potential Policy Responses
9:30 AM - 5:30 PM EST
Permanent Mission of Ca
nada to the UN
885 Second Avenue\, 14th Fl
oor
New York\, NY 10017
RSVP by June 10 by emailing emily.kenney@unwomen.org
Follow along on T witter using the hashtag #SurvivorsSpeak
Following the launch o f I am Evelyn Amony\, please join an interactive workshop inspired by Evelyn’s experiences\, wit h panel discussion on gender\, transitional justice and social repair\; the needs of children born of wartime rape\; and comparative historical and co ntemporary perspectives on violent extremism.
Speakers include: Abdou laye Bathily (Under-Secretary-General\, SRSG for Central Africa and Head of UNOCA)\, David Tolbert (President\, ICTJ)\, Dyan Mazurana (Tufts Universit y)\, Erin Baines (Liu Institute for Global Issues\, Universit y of British Columbia)\, Evelyn Amony (Women’s Advocacy Network\, Uganda)\, Jacqueline Mutere (Grace Agenda\, Kenya)\, Kelli Muddell (ICTJ)\, Ketty An yeko (Fund for War-affected Children and Youth\, Uganda)\, Lakshmi Puri (As sistant Secretary-General\, UN Women)\, Leila Zerrougui (Under-Secretary Ge neral\, SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict)\, Michael Grant (Deputy Perman ent Representative\, Canada)\, Nahla Valji (UN Women)\, Virginie Ladisch (I CTJ) and Zainab Bangura (Under-Secretary-General\, SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict).
Erin Baines\, an Associate Professor a t the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC\, has focused her research on transitional justice\; the politics of humanitarianism and forced displacem ent\; and\, the study of gender and armed conflict\, with a regional focus on northern Uganda.
Background: ‘I am Ev elyn Amony’
The autobiography\, I am Evelyn Amony: Reclaiming My Life from the Lord’s Resistance Army\, will be launched in New York on 15 June 2016. The book documents the author’s daily life as the forced wife of Joseph Kony\, leader of the armed group the Lord's Resis tance Army. Abducted as a young girl\, Amony first trained as Kony's perso nal escort before becoming his wife at 14\, and bearing three of his childr en. Her book provides unprecedented insights into the organization of the armed group during the 11 years she was held captive\, the relationships th at defined it and her experience\, and a reflection on what it meant to sur vive this experience.
Now chair of the Women's Advocacy Network (WAN) – which has grown from 20 to 900 women in the last three years – Amony off ers incredible insights based on her experience\, and that of women of the network\, on the forms of justice and reparation they seek\, the challenges of reintegration for women and girls associated with fighting forces\, and the sometimes lack of fit between international policies and programmatic interventions\, and the daily lived experiences and needs of those affected by conflict. The book foregrounds the value and necessity of understandin g individual lived experience for policy-makers and practitioners to effect ively respond to the gendered dimensions of peace and security.
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Rationale fo r the Workshop
To ‘learn from lived experience’ is to r ecognize the agency of victims\, acting within limited and debilitating pos itions\, and to begin to work with this knowledge to design better policies and programmes to widen spaces for seeking peace\, security and justice at level of the everyday.
The workshop will follow the New York launch of I am Evelyn Amony and use the book as a starting point for a di scussion on learning from lived experiences\, examining key themes reflecte d in the book to explore peace and security issues with a greater understan ding of context-specific and gender-responsive impacts. The panel discussio ns will bring together survivors of conflict\, including the author\, with policy-makers\, practitioners and donors\, to humanize conflict and peace a nd security interventions\, and explore how everyday life can shed new insi ghts into policy or programme needs.
The workshop will focus on four topics discussed in I am Evelyn Amony\, which are of global releva nce and significance: (i) reintegration and social repair\; (ii) transition al justice\; (iii) children born of wartime sexual violence\; and (iv) comp arative historical and contemporary perspectives and lessons learned in cou ntering violent extremism. Each panel discussion will feature a range of pe rspectives\, including expert practitioners\, policymakers and survivors—in spiring reflection\, discussion and action.
Building a greater unders tanding of conflict and peacebuilding is of particular importance at presen t moment\, given renewed global commitment to tackling protracted and recur ring cycles of conflict by building sustainable and inclusive peace. In 201 5\, the United Nations completed three reviews of its work on peace and sec urity—on peace operations\, peacebuilding architecture\, and the women\, pe ace and security agenda. Each of these reviews found that\, given the compl exity of current global threats—from violent extremism\, to forced displace ment and climate change—the United Nations and its member states must re-ev aluate current approaches and priorities.
The agreement on a goal of peaceful and inclusive societies in our new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Dev elopment makes it clear that we cannot build peace on the basis of exclusio n\, inequality and marginalization. This is of particular relevance in the case of women. Evidence from the three UN reviews makes it clear that women ’s meaningful participation and leadership in conflict prevention\, resolut ion and recovery is directly correlated with a higher likelihood of sustain able peace. Greater understanding of the experiences as well as obstacles t o participation and empowerment encountered by women such as Evelyn can con tribute greatly to improving the policy and programming responses of the in ternational community.
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