Gender
Channeling Women’s Voices Through Digital Multimedia
If you gather people for an event and you show them a short film—you are able to more quickly convince them of your cause, rather than just relying on a speech or a lecture. Short films are a very effective tool to inform people about important topics. Of course, they can also go viral.
Rethinking Gender and Violent Extremism
Within the field of countering violent extremism, research and interventions that do consider the role of gender in recruitment have mainly focused on women in violent extremism. However, men and boys are disproportionately recruited by and join extremist groups, and they are more likely to carry out extremist violence. With an increasing interest in shifting the narrative from countering to “preventing” violent extremism, there is a need to look deeper into the reasons why men join such groups, and to examine how their gendered identities constructed in day-to-day ...
Tools Against Corruption and Human Trafficking
Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons (TIP), is a multibillion-dollar criminal industry surpassed only by drug trafficking and arms sales. The 2017 data by the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed that there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. Under federal and international law, TIP is considered a crime, but there have been many challenges in enforcing this. Ambassador Luis C.deBaca (retired), a Robina Fellow of Modern Slavery at Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, ...
Building and Bridging Central Asia
By Ambassador Natalia Gherman
I was appointed by Secretary-General António Guterres to be the Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, (UNRCCA) on September 15, 2017. UNRCCA is an interesting assignment. The mission is one of the smallest United Nations Special Political Missions but covers an absolutely enormous territory that bridges Europe and Asia. Together with my staff, I am charged with supporting the Governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in their ...
Security Sector Reform as a Tool for Development
In its 2017 report, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) highlighted that security and justice institutions are often the main interface between states and the populations they are meant to serve. However, the states protracted ineffectiveness or poor governance can leave the door open for conflict to escalate. DCAF’s Dr. Hans Born spoke with VantagePoints to share his thoughts and experience on how an effective and robust security sector reform (SSR) process can be an important tool for peace and development.
How did you get interested ...
The Value of Peacekeeping
This year, the United Nations (UN) celebrates 70 years of peacekeeping. Since 1948, more than one million UN peacekeepers from over 100 countries have served to stabilize some of the world’s most volatile conflict zones. Studies have shown that peacekeeping makes a huge difference in terms of preventing the resurgence of conflict when sufficiently resourced and equipped. But with recent budget cuts to several UN Peacekeeping missions, there is a growing concern about the future of the institution. VantagePoints recently spoke with Chandrima Das on this issue. Ms. Das ...
Coding to Fight Gender Inequality
In the 2017/18 Women, Peace and Security Index launched by the Georgetown Institute of Women, Peace, and Security and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Afghanistan and Syria tied at the bottom as the worst countries to be a woman. In both countries, years of violence, discriminatory practices, and cultural barriers have denied women job opportunities and inadequate representation in the society.
In this feature, Fereshteh Forough drew upon her own experience of being born a refugee in Iran during the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan. She witnessed ...
