Complex Conflict, Women’s Rights, & the Promise of the Women, Peace & Security Agenda

This event will mark International Women’s Day by bringing together diverse legal, policy, and other practitioners, including local and international civil society, working to advance women’s rights globally and in Minnesota. The event will focus on the role of the women, peace and security agenda in addressing the broad terrain of complex conflict situations, including ‘new’ and long-standing conflict contexts. Here a broad array of issues will be addressed including the cyclical nature of armed conflict, the ways in which both contemporary international and non-international armed conflict engage the WPS agenda. More particularly, the event will address the challenges of inclusion for women in conflict and peace processes, the ways in which women are harmed directly and indirectly by conflict and the impact of counter-terrorism measures on women’s human rights, including in addressing the targeting of human rights defenders and civil society that advocate for the realization of women’s rights.

Featuring panelists:

Ambassador Natalka Cmoc, Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Faculty Director, Human Rights Center, Regents Professor & Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society

Iryna Drobovych (Bochar), Strategy Director of the Ukrainian Women's Congress, Humphrey International Fellows, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

Trang Hoang, Humphrey International Fellow, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

Opening remarks by Beth Richardson, Consul General of Canada in Minneapolis, United States. Closing remarks by Christina Ewig, Professor of Public Affairs and Faculty Director of the Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Moderated by Megan L. Manion, Senior Research Fellow, Human Rights Center, University of Minnesota Law School.