Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the United States Institute of Peace, I'm delighted to welcome you to today's event on the protection of gender and sexual minorities during armed conflict. I'm Dr. Joseph Sany, USIP Vice President, leading the Africa Center under USIP Justice Diversity Equity and Inclusion Initiatives. USIP was founded by the US Congress more than 30 years ago with a mandate to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict worldwide. Today's discussion is of particular significance to the Institute's ongoing work and commitment to justice, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, which constitute the foundation of peacebuilding. This discussion is also of direct relevance to USIP's long-standing work to advance the Women Peace and Security Agenda. The Women Peace and Security Agenda has at its heart a commitment to safeguarding the security, dignity and meaningful participation of all persons. Last week, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressed in his first press conference deep concern over the unparallel, I quote, pushback on women's right across the world as well as the increasingly violent repression of civic leaders and erosion of civic space. The gendered nature of such backlash invariably also means heightened risk for gender and sexual minorities, especially in the context of violent conflict. It is therefore particularly timely and important to have a report that gathers and analyzes evidence on the differentiated and disproportionate impact of armed conflict on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse persons as well as the mechanisms and resources available to prevent and address these harms. I am pleased to welcome Mr. Victor Madigal Boros, the author of the report to the UN General Assembly that we will be discussing today. Mr. Madigal Boros is an independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. He began his three-year term as independent expert in January 2018 and is the second appointee to serve in this capacity. Mr. Madigal Boros is a Costa Rican jurist currently in residence at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program as a senior visiting researcher. Prior to this, he served as a secretary general of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. As member of the UN subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture from 2013 to 2016, he was rapporteur on the prisel and oversaw a draft policy on the torture and ill treatment of LGBTI persons. His career in human rights and international law is extensive and distinguished. It is an honor to have you here with us, Madigal. The floor is yours and thank you. Thank you very much. I am delighted and it's a singular honor to be able to be having this conversation today. And of course to Joseph Sani and to the United States Institute for Peace as well as Kathleen, London and Andrew, my word of thanks for being part of this panel. I'm delighted that we're actually taking the invitation to carry out this conversation forward. The mandate of the independent expert was created with the purpose of giving visibility to the way in which violence and discrimination occur in the everyday life of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse persons. It was created with the idea that it would carry out thematic research and gather evidence, analyze it and place that analysis to the service of the international community. The idea is that this research, this conclusion, this analysis forms some form of building blocks, narrative concepts that are used by state and non-state actors in the construction of their work and their strategies aiming at the eradication of violence and discrimination. And the creation of the mandate reveals a singular and extremely important will of the international community is to acknowledge that sexual orientation and gender identity are important factors in the analysis of violence and discrimination and in the understanding of the agendas to further human rights, peace and security and development, which of course are the foundational objectives of the United Nations. This particular report was born out of the need revealed to me in a consultative process carried out in 2020 in which over a thousand persons and organizations and states participated in which the constant message was that on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity there's myriad violations that occur during armed conflict. A context in which there's also an exacerbated functioning of stigma, discrimination and violence. And yet the argument before me, the contention before me was that there's very little evidence and that it has been historically not a common trait that this, the way in which these characteristics, these grounds actually interacted with violence and discrimination during armed conflict have not been studied regularly within the dynamics of conflict. The idea of course is to understand how gender based approaches and frameworks that those frameworks that provide sharp lenses for the understanding of asymmetries of power and violence and discrimination, how they are to be understood in the dynamics of conflict, which of course very much relate to that idea of power and the way power manifests itself. It was also quite important to recognize and study how populations, communities and peoples historically affected by discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity would be part of the processes of peace building and peacekeeping. And this report which actually was carried out as a result of a consultative participative process in which I called for inputs from the international community was eventually published and presented to the third committee of the General Assembly two weeks ago. And I'd like to take a few minutes to take you through what I believe are three main analytical threads that this report presents to your consideration. The first one is the threat concerning the evidence as to how conflict related violence impacts and has intersection with sexual orientation and gender identity. And in this connection, I was able to draw five general conclusions in relation to that evidence. The first one is that sexual orientation and gender identity are present. We see shreds of evidence in any conflict that one sheds some light into. We were able to gather some examples, not only as to how the real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity of victims was at the root of certain forms of violence, but also very importantly how preconception and stigma played a role in the design of certain forms of violence during armed conflict which were designed to inflict damage in enemy forces by parties in conflict through the mechanism of demoralization or inflicting psychological damage. And therefore the report presents a number of those examples. I can pick up a few right now, such as the shreds and I insist these are shreds of evidence coming from the Bosnian war where allegations including the use of homosexual behaviors and imposing them on persons to the effect of utilizing stigma and discrimination to the purpose of humiliate, expunging genitalia to the purpose of eliminating the feature that is in particular supposed to be definitional as to what the male in a particular context is. And finally, we have some evidence that were found by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission in Libya as to the use by particular flag fractions in conflict in particular to reaffirm and underline certain notions concerning masculinity under Salafist views. So from that thread of evidence, the conclusion that one could draw, which becomes a working theory as well, is that there is a tactical use of sexual orientation and gender identity and the preconception and stigma that are attached therein. But we also know in a second thread conceptual and analysis thread that during armed conflict there's also the feature of exacerbated violence and discrimination that was occurring before the conflict or that response to dynamics of stigma, criminalization and pathologization. And therefore we see some examples of the way in which during conflict structures of criminalization are favored as ways of persecuting communities and populations, particularly when it comes to ascertaining certain domination over territories and exercising narratives of domination over certain communities. We see it also not only in the dynamics of conflict, but also in relation to opportunistic behaviors during situation of crisis. So in the case in Afghanistan with the recent takeover of the Taliban and also opportunistic use of humanitarian and emergency measures, such as is the case of the evidence that we have seen coming from COVID-19 response and recovery. And all of these features which replicate themselves in armed conflict and human situations of humanitarian situations that ensue have in common with them this exacerbation of the situation of inequality, an extreme inequality in which LGBT persons arrive to armed conflict. And we can think in this connection with examples, for example, that relate to economic precariousness excessive reliance on informal sectors that are the first to be affected during conflict. And of course inability to rely on financial or other top type of support facilities and of course support networks that include in very many cases the community and the family. The union of these tactical and structural factors also allows for the working theory, which I examine in my report about the strategic use of sexual orientation and gender identity and connected preconception and stigma in relation to overarching political and rhetoric strategies during conflict. And I think this is particularly relevant and very recent when we see some of the political discourses that have been coming out in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where LGBT issues are very insistently used to underline an alleged resistance to so-called Western agendas in relation to LGBTI issues and particular imposition of legal and social models in occupied sections and territories, which replicates the way in which we saw those patterns being implemented since 2014 in Crimea. And of course with the correlative concerns within the population and in particularly LGBT persons in a particular context. The findings of the independent international mission in Myanmar are another example in which in particular the population of trans women and the affectation that they have received of extreme violence and discrimination appears to be not only opportunistic and tactical but also quite significantly strategic in its use as ways not only to inflict and enforce certain gender norms but very importantly as ways to create certain notions within the population. As a result of these patterns, my report also highlights my concern about the systematic exclusion of LGBT peoples from available humanitarian corridors and other type of humanitarian and crisis facilities, including very important medical facilities and safe homes. I was horrified to learn from an activist in Ukraine that in the whole territory in which customarily LGBT people are not admitted or expelled from shelters during this conflict there have only been 16 beds dedicated specifically to LGBT persons in a conflict of the magnitude that we know exists. And I think that this will provide you with an idea of that very particular form in which social exclusion impacts then at the receiving end of this type of not only exclusion but placement in situations of extreme risk. The first one relates to a concept that I have called instrumentalization of prejudice, which comes from a series of experiences of field experiences, the most recent of which is the Colombian peace and truth process. And in relation to which a term called violencia por prejuicio or translated directly violence by prejudice have now picked up that term and I have translated it in my report as instrumentalization of prejudice. And I believe it reflects the idea that in armed conflict we see certain features of the way in which sexual orientation and gender identity are utilized, as I have expressed strategically and tactically as warring techniques to inflict damage in opposing parties and to inflict and create an underlying certain gender norms to the purpose of creating legitimacy and sometimes buy out for territorial domination. Instrumentalization of prejudice has been articulated best in my view in the Colombian case but already one could see indicia of it being expressed by the group of eminent experts in Yemen by the truth and reconciliation commission in Peru as well. And in all of the cases it alludes to this use of the symbolic impact of violence, the use of structures of relation of social contexts within the very specific ways in which violence is exercised. And the hierarchical and exclusionary purpose of violence itself. The last concept that I explore in relation to this line of thinking is that of the very specific catalogs of violence, which can be identified precisely in connection with the context. And which depending on particular context will include from manifestations of a social exclusion to heinous violations. One of the most heinous examples of which is rape so-called corrective inflicted on lesbian women, of which I received multiple allegations of occurrence in armed conflict in different latitudes of the world, including or passing through other violations such as torture and mistreatment, forced nudity, beatings and so on. In all of the cases, what appears to be crucial here is that the identification of catalogs of violence also allows for the further work in which truth and reconciliation or truth commissions carry out their work in identifying patterns which in themselves to the identification of indicia and working theories which can then be tested in judicial venues. That is so much in what concerns this evidence that was made available to me through the submissions in the report. All of these evidence then needs to be placed in the key of regulatory frameworks that are available in international law to the treatment of these issues and in particular to the accountability in atrocity and conflict. And there are four frameworks that have points of connectivity in relation to these type of situations. And those are of course international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, refugee law, and one international public policy framework, which is the peace and security agenda. With its extraordinary flagship, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. And I in my report have examined the way in which these frameworks can be seen as competing or excluding each other or as I conclude, based on the robust findings of a number of treaty bodies and independent experts as well as regional bodies, on the necessary complementarity of these bodies of law, but also very importantly on the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity have not yet been explored to the full extent that is necessary in frameworks of international humanitarian law in which as the Secretary General of the United Nations has explained, sexual orientation and gender identity appear to be blind spots in that particular framework. And of course in international human rights law, where there are a number of instruments starting of course in the visionary work carried out from Vienna and Beijing and the incorporation of gender in these frameworks, which is complementary and are complementary in themselves to the work that has been made to advance gender based frameworks in international criminal law. And in particular, through the gender policy of the prosecutor of the international criminal court, that as we know gives context to the application of the rather outdated definition and perhaps not so contextualized present in the Rome Statue. The report also goes specifically to an exploration of the peace and security policies and agendas and concludes that the implementation of gender frameworks that are ample and inclusive allow the recognition and dealing with the particular issues that the report has identified. This connects with what is a rather heated debate at the moment in international fora, which is the extent and the scope of this gender frameworks and in relation to which I'm very much hoping that this report will make further contribution in addition to the reports on gender that have been issued by the report in previous years. The fundamental conclusion there is that this extraordinary agenda that has done so much to place the disproportionate impact on women and girls and of course that already includes lesbian, bisexual trans women is also a crucial tool to identify the way in which gender preconception and stigma affects and creates this type of strategic and tactical opportunity that I have created evidence and gathered evidence of in my report. I'd like to dedicate a last sentence to the important work that is gathered and that has allowed some of this evidence and findings and it's the work of course in peace building and peacekeeping. And that as we know is highly contextualized to every political process. The report includes an inventory of some of the processes in which elements of gender based frameworks and recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity are present and concludes in the observation of the most recent example, which as we all know is the Colombian process in which a gender based approach, not only created in my view, an incredible opportunity for revealing the texture and the nuance in which communities and populations were affected, not least among them women and girls and lesbian gay bisexual trans and gender diverse persons there in intersecting or auditioning, but also created a very significant opportunity to recognize the value of the collective experience of these communities in the peace building effort, because let us remind ourselves that these communities have very specific mechanisms of resilience and of community based work that can be significant contributions to these processes. As we know, the gender based approach in the peace process was one of the most exploited features in the political process that led to the referendum through which the accords were not taken forward and yet the current Colombian government I'm delighted to let you know, declared publicly in a core in a core group event at the United Nations that I had the honor to chair that they are firmly committed to taking forward the agreements with their gender based approach and all of the commitments of which in relation to which there's several dozen that relate to gender based frameworks and several dozen as well concerning the rights of LGBT persons. This is the first for a of my mandate into this extremely specialized extremely rich area that exists at the intersection of international of the all of these frameworks of international law and policy. And I was mentioning in a preparatory session to all of our distinguished colleagues in the panel that I meant to be a conversation starter because I understand that it's a conversation that requires to be placed and taken forward in the political and legal for at the United Nations. As I said at the beginning I wrap up as I began expressing my delight and the singular honor that is for me to be present in this conversation today. And I thank you so much and will be delighted to take part of the subsequent exchange. Thank you very much. Victor Thank you so much. Victor Mattregal Bourlas the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. We are now going to open it up to our discussants to respond to some of the key factors that Victor has laid out in what he talks about as a hidden debate around gender.  I'm joined here this afternoon by two very very good colleagues London Bell who co-chairs the executive committee of the US civil society working group on women peace and security. She's been a member of the United Nations Association of the United States of America and the immediate past National Council Secretary. She is also the 2020 African Descent Fellow for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and was recently selected to be at the opening session on the newly formed United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. I will then turn after London offers her immediate response to Andrew Cheatham my colleague here at the US Institute of Peace senior expert working in our executive office. He is a lawyer by training former United Nations official the long history of success working in international affairs and highly complex and crisis environments. In the Middle East and in Africa and we looked to both of them for their perspective from their background and expertise London the opening comments are to you and Andrew. I will note that we will be also accepting questions in the chat room so we look forward to hearing from all of you as well. London welcome. Thank you Kathleen. I want to start out by thanking Dr. Senai for his welcoming remarks as well and Victor. Thank you so much. We are truly grateful for your work as the mandate holder and your truly groundbreaking report on protecting LGBT and gender diverse persons during our conflict and as a member of the US civil society working group on women peace and security. I am very heartened by the opportunity today for an open dialogue on the intersectional gender approach to the women peace and security framework. I'm also very eager for our members and the broader community to engage with you on your recommendations on ways we can work to promote the rights of LGBT and diverse persons during conflict. And for our working group particularly to explore and create long term strategies specifically around coalition building to ensure the rights of LGBT and gender diverse persons that the rights of gender diverse persons and LGBT folks are protected. And so I have I'm listening to your your presentation today. I have one question that I'd like to start to ask you in response to more calls on the intersectional gender approach to WPS. Has there been any discussion on creating an additional UN Security Council resolution specifically recognizing the disproportionate impact of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity during our conflict. If not, should we be having that discussion. And I'm going to hold for a moment Victor on that and turn it to Andrew for his comments and also initiation of any question. Thank you Kathleen and thank you to Dr. Sonny for his opening remarks. Thank you London for having me here with you and a special thanks to you Victor for your remarks and all of your work as London said as the mandate holder for this special work. As they have been an expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. I think the support for your work in the previous High Commissioner was shown visibly through the work of the Office High Commissioner for Human Rights and President Bachelet was a champion of your work and that's clear. I think with the incoming new High Commissioner Mr. Volker Turk referenced by Dr. Sonny. I think it presents maybe an opportunity to have a discussion about how and because of his work in the secretariat and his work with UNHCR and other parts of the organization within the UN. There may be opportunities to discuss in the context of your findings of your report how action can be taken now in partnership with UN entities but also of course the partners on the ground civil society organization and the human rights defenders on the ground. And I would like to ask you about potential programs in three main areas. One that looks at the real time threats that you your report really highlights the nature of the violence the spectrum of the violence that you that you mentioned and how heinous it can be and horrible it can be for people. And in that respect I know you've done a lot of work in partnership with UNHCR and UNHCR has done a lot of work on the policy and legal front to open up space for asylum seekers. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about how partnering on the ground in certain context. Maybe some of the context you've mentioned in the report might help the evidence gathering that you're doing to actually bring people out of these violent situations and help opportunities for asylum elsewhere in protection. The second sort of forward looking programmatic element that I would love to hear more about and discuss more about is this peace process work that you talked about. I've heard you elsewhere talk about Indonesia in the 2005 peace agreement and how that was an example of how there was not enough thinking and voices from the LGBT and gender diverse communities in the process. So how do you see partnering with the secretary and the Department of Peacekeeping political affairs perhaps maybe UNDP that's my former entity in these peace processes to bring in these voices. And actually make them transferable into the as you mentioned in the report the transitional arrangements up to and including constitutional arrangements where these protections can be embodied. And like you said in your remarks so that we can move away from these structural components of violence against LGBT and gender diverse communities. And then thirdly unfortunately I think in a lot of cases despite the innate protections in international human rights law international humanitarian law and other legal regimes that you highlight. You've also of course highlighted the need for further explicit development and protections in those legal regimes. But also amidst armed conflict as we know especially within non international armed conflict where you have de facto non state actors in an area we find a special violence against LGBT and gender diverse communities. And unfortunately in those in those situations it's hard to enforce international human rights law international community. So this accountability framework and the evidence gathering that you're talking about is so important. I would like to want to hear what you maybe think about the new work in accountability general the broader framework and you as great jurors know the work that's being done a lot of it spurred from the work in Ukraine on this network of universal jurisdiction and provide and work on in extraterritorial arrangements for web of accountability supported not only by the ICC and international bodies but also by domestic courts around the world and how you might think that could play into the evidence that you found. So I know that's a lot. We don't have to cover it all today, but you just it's such an important report and I just stimulated a lot of thoughts. Thank you very much. Victor over to you. Thank you very much and of course to you Kathleen, but also to London and Andrew for their very insightful remarks and the invitation to elaborate a little bit in relation to to these issues. I'll take them in succession. London's question related, I think to that very specific point of entry which is the United Nations Security Council. And on this I, I'd like to make reference to three main threads of information here. The first one is, I think that there is a whole set of opportunities that exist within the peace and security architecture at least what I know as the peace and security architecture that very complex series of institutions and methods and mechanisms that exist under the auspices of the United Nations. And of course I see things from my vantage point that of a United Nations mandate holder. So I imagine that that universe of many opportunities and I have a little drawing here when I was firing with one of my colleagues the other day about how those opportunities look. And if you would look at it, it looks like an extremely messy drawing. And I think that it's not because I'm bad at drawing is because actually the system is quite opaque in itself. And, and of course, it concerns the whole dynamic of the international community, the dynamics within the general assembly within actually specialized agendas and public policies, and all of the institutions of the UN family, all of which exist and carry out their programming in situations that may be of conflict, as well as the human rights architecture and the development architecture and committees and so on and so forth. All of those instances represent opportunities to bring these topics forward. But of course, under a very specific set of rules, which, as you know, are both under questioning because of the fact that they were built perhaps for another time in another number of dynamics within the international community and are at the same time under threat, not because of positive forward looking questioning, but because of very real threats of the international order as we know it. And the insertion of this theme in that architecture exists within the context of this extremely volatile political reality. And part of the work of stakeholders and in particular states within the system is also to manage that political environment, right? So part of the questions that I have to myself is one of the invitations that immediately I think you were thinking about London when talking about this was the fact that there has been a number of, you know, one area formula at the very least that related to focusing on gay men by ISIL, which was carried out in 2015. But the fact that it was an area formula will give you very much the key as to what is seen, what was seen in 2015 and what I consider continues to be seen as the difficulties in bringing that issue forward in the most, let's say, formal settings of the Security Council. Now, as my report finds, any analysis of violence and subsequent accountability, reconciliation and truth will be incomplete if there is not a comprehensive gender lens to it. And within a comprehensive gender lens, there are the realities of persons that are impacted by this type of violence and discrimination. So the answer to your question, and I know you meant that a little bit more broad, the specific answer to your question is I definitely think that we should be having that discussion aiming to bring that evidence forward in front of the Security Council in front of the General Assembly as I attempted to do myself. But we also know that there are significant obstacles to that effect. And as that goes on and as those obstacles manifest themselves, I also think that we need to look for openings within the rest of this very complex and opaque system. And there I wanted to make a second point. You may be thinking, London, that I'm abusing the extent to which you actually raise this question, but I hope that it's within that context that you raise it. I think the first one is that idea of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda being in and of itself a main vehicle for forwarding inclusive, comprehensive, truly adequate gender based frameworks and conceptions. And I think that that can be done without losing the importance in absolutely essential historical context of the placement of women and girls squarely in the center of the political debate, but also acknowledging that there are other existences that are impacted by the very same mechanisms. And because the mechanisms are at the origin, I think that there is an importance there. And the other thing that I wanted to highlight is the fact that a lot of this conceptualization, a lot of these building blocks come from the human rights machinery. And as you may know, New York based structures are famously, famously resistant in some cases to the permeation if that word exists in English to those building blocks in the human rights machinery. So I think part of the work is to ensure that there is a coherence and a complementarity. And that includes very much the receptiveness of the Security Council as a body that understands that human rights based approaches are at the base of sustainable peace building and peacekeeping and security. In that sense, what we speak about when we talk about a human rights based approach is non discrimination, participation, empowerment and accountability. That is what basically constitutes a human rights based approach. And the second that you place it there, I'm sure that those are words that are very familiar to the Security Council. But I think that the mystical nature of the term human rights sometimes doesn't do us great service in this connection. And again, thank you London for so generously allowing me to expand views in relation to this issue. I look forward to continued work in the security and peace agenda. And again, I think that the Security Council should assume its role as bringing together all of those concepts. That allows me to go to the main political actor that actually will have a stake in relation to this, which is of course the, I think this person is called in the United States media sometimes as the human rights chief of the United Nations the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the appointment of Volker Turg, former Under Secretary General for Policy in New York, former Assistant High Commissioner at UNHCR is a very, very welcome development for everybody working against discrimination and violence. And because of his particular knowledge of mechanisms that drive discrimination and violence in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity. A most welcome addition to this architecture. High Commissioner Turk and I have been working together in an agenda that he announced last 17 of May, which is the overarching United Nations LGBT strategy for inclusion. And which has as purpose replicating the type of very positive experience that he presided off within UNHCR and extended to all of the members of the United Nations family at the political level, and then make it give the means to have it percolate in the programming action of agencies in the United Nations and as you can imagine, this will include the peace and security architecture, because one of the fundamental elements when you speak with the peace building support office in New York is you realize how quickly the peace building fund the peace building commission, the thematic work of the peace building support office all merge and go to the particular work of United Nations agencies. Those that work in the humanitarian field, those that work in crisis, those that work in emergency, but also those that are working in the operations to reestablish, to establish resilience and so on and so forth. So I think that there's a great, great possibility there. And as you can imagine, Andrew and other colleagues in this conversation. One of the most important experiences that we can draw on is the one created by Directive 9 at the UNHCR, which so effectively brought the specific concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, forcefully displaced persons to the forefront of the work of qualifying officers, interviewing officers, political authorities across borders and within the playbook of UNHCR. I always say to the High Commissioner for Refugees that one of my most extraordinary experiences when I visit the ground is meeting with the colleagues of UNHCR. They will always have their booklet on General Directive 9 or Directive 9 in the desk and I find it to be one of the most extraordinary experiences of mainstreaming the concerns on sexual orientation and gender identity. Andrew, you mentioned quite accurately. I mean, you ran the gamut of concerns that we need to work together in and I'm very grateful to you for that. You oxygenate my thinking, which is delightful. You connected all of that with evidence and we know that one of the most difficult issues. Nobody, nobody will take issue with you colleagues. If you say, oh, we need to get more evidence, we need to get more data. In New York, that was kind of the word that came in every meeting that I had for the last three weeks during my appearance to the General Assembly. But the question is how do you enable the structures to gather evidence. When it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity, how do you gather evidence in the 68 countries that criminalize homosexuality? How do you gather evidence not only because you are in a situation of conceptual self-incrimination when you ask people about who they live, what their sexual behavior is, how they self-identify and so on and so forth. But also very importantly, how do you create the trust with the civil society that has the data, has been gathering it for decades that that data will not be used in a detrimental way. The concept of non detrimental reliance of data gathered in these exercises is a fundamental part of the equation. And in the process of preparing this report, I listened with great concern to the way in which political volatility, which is exacerbated during conflict, of course, creates opportunities for extraordinary abuse. And so organizations that had in good faith shared some data to government that ended up being parted to a conflict found themselves for that data to be utilized for the most horrendous of purposes, the second that the conflict actually turned a certain way against that particular actor. So non detrimental reliance, the rules for gathering data, the way in which data needs to be preserved and can be then in very many ways costed is going to be part of the work. The other part, important in what you mentioned, Andrew, is I shared with with some people the other day that when the Ukraine conflict started, one of the things that came to my attention very fast was the difficulties of trans women who had not received recognition of their gender identity to leave the Ukrainian territory as they are entitled to, but they were not able to because their documents did not correspond to their appearance. And we see this over and over again. And as you can imagine, when the conflict is and was ongoing, it was not the moment for me to recommend to the state that a training program be put in place for border guards. I think the government would have very, very understandably said that my request was actually not timely or pertinent in that time. This is why it's important to have those structures in place before conflict and emergency happen. This is why it's important to give priority to the way in which people basically have the foundation of their relationship to the state. And this is why, in what you were mentioning about, not only the policy level, Andrew, but the implementation and the programming of that policy. We need to have these conditions in place because over and over and over again, we see them replicating and perpetuating exclusion and violations. Kathleen, I know I'm testing your patience, but I promise you, I'm only going to use two more minutes. As I, as I imagine that we want to move to another level in the conversation. We have about seven minutes, so. Oh, you're so kind. And I'm going to, as I have the floor here, as you add to the conversation, I would love to hear more about what has been the response of your report at the UN and other international actors. Where do you see openings at this point? I'll leave three minutes for that. And then I will use four to complete the beginning of this conversation with Andrew, of which I'm delighted, of course. Indonesia is a very good example of how the non-involvement of communities completely extracts the knowledge that they have about the dynamics and where the risks lie. And this relates, of course, to the particular of the agreement that allowed the preponderance of a certain understanding of Sharia in the HF province that has led to the most horrendous violations against trans women in the HF province. In my view, because there was no participation of these communities in an understanding of what that political compromise meant in practice. But I would also like to underline in relation to this that there is an importance in not only using the knowledge of communities about the factors that create risk, but also very important their knowledge about the particular way in which violations are replicated. One of the constant constant informations that I received is that in conflict when humanitarian assistance is provided and is delegated to community and religious leaders. There is a great risk that the provision of assistance is going to replicate the way in which discrimination operates at a community level. So, myriad persons came to me and said, my family did not get the family support or food package, because when I went to the top of the line, the community leader that was distributing said yours is not a real family. And I'm not giving you this package because it's meant for families. And you see in a very concrete way how this structure of understanding what a family is, is actually manifesting itself in the way people have access to food or have access to hygiene. And I would submit, Andrew, that this is the reason of not having consulted the communities what would be the consequences of delegating a certain type of community or religious leader or not requesting safeguards or providing an understanding of the way that the assistance would have to be provided. And you've alluded to all of these elements in relation to this. Andrew, we're going to need to talk about the network of universal jurisdiction at a later time, but I can assure you, you have conceptually invited me to many, many cups of coffee or maybe even glasses of wine by just raising this concept of which I do have some views, some of which are very positive as to the possibilities. So let me just leave you with that teaser there so that we can actually take it forward. A conversation to which of course Dr. Sani and Kathleen and London are also very, very invited. To Kathleen Kunast, I would just like to say that the reception of the report has been, I would say that there's three key sentences that I would describe for that. The first one is there has been enthusiastic reception of both the political processes within the United Nations. So I'm talking the type of peace building architecture institutionalities, the UN institutions, the UN family members, as well as of course as the processes led by the secretary general. And in all of those processes, there has been what I would say enthusiastic reception by the placement of this issue in the agenda. Placing it in the context of the larger community of states, I think there has been a very vigorous and robust engagement by a group of countries that are not necessarily the only ones that support my mandate. But also some of the countries that have suffered internal strife. So I was delighted, for example, by having a long conversation with Angola, the representatives of Angola in my appearance to the third committee. So there you have an example of a country that in a very specific way requested information as to how these tools could be useful to expand these frameworks. I have vigorous engagement, of course, of the countries of the core group, which include our large community of states. My concern lies with the countries that continue to deny that sexual orientation or gender identities are valid points of entry in the analysis of violence and discrimination. That continue to say that those words need to be taken out of public policy and regulatory frameworks. And that continue to deny that LGBT persons actually suffer violence and discrimination because they are LGBT persons as well as a myriad other identities that they reunite in their bodies. And of course, I am inviting those states to continue being open to the evidence that I'm presenting them about the fact that their work and their accountability to the people living under their jurisdiction is going to be compromised if they don't actually take this into account. Thank you, Victor. I think you began by saying this is a conversation starter. We are going to hold you to the continue conversation that you have laid out today. First of all, we appreciate your dedication, your courage and your persistence in your efforts to provide evidence and importance of gender inclusivity for both sexual orientation and gender identity dynamics. So thank you for taking the time today with the US Institute of Peace. I want to thank my colleagues London Bell and Andrew Cheatham, Joseph Sonny and all the people behind the scenes that help me this program today, a success. Thank you and we will end our conversation but only look forward to the next one. Thank you, Victor.


Matthew Page and co-authors describe Prisma 2020, an updated reporting guideline for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. This article was authored by Matthew J. Page, Joanne McKenzie, Patrick M. Bosswitt and others.


Very recently in France a teacher was beheaded. He was beheaded because he had spoken to his class about censorship, freedom of expression, free speech and secularism, things that are fundamental to the identity of the French Republic. He was beheaded by a Muslim who was incensed at this. He had used and discussed cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to facilitate the discussion and it's not hard to understand why we know what happened in France in 2015 when cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were slaughtered. For the same reason Muslims incensed that people, non-Muslims were discussing their religion and using cartoons to satirise their religion. This is absolutely unacceptable in the Islamic faith. It doesn't tolerate secularism, free speech, free expression or satire and it doesn't tolerate any depictions of Muhammad. It doesn't tolerate it from people inside the religion or people outside the religion. There are of course individual Muslims who believe in free expression but Islam doesn't. It has a death penalty for it. It applies the death penalty for it and in many Muslim states across the world the death penalty is enforced by the state for blasphemy or apostasy or both. We have a serious, serious clash of cultures here and many of us have known this for some time but it's becoming more and more evident. France is a country that its identity, going back to the French Revolution when the French Republic was formed and it's grown in the direction of liberty, of satire, of free speech that is fundamental to France. It also has a huge and growing Muslim population which do not accept this and as a result France is getting more and more divided. The political left naturally enough is siding with the totalitarians on the Islamic side. They call it hate speech, any disagreement with them. The Muslims call it Islamophobia but Islamophobia is simply free speech. It is our ability to satirise and criticise religion and it is something that not just France but across Europe we have fought for centuries. This has not come out of thinner ancestors. Our ancestors fought and died for our freedom of expression. It's vital in Europe. It's important to us and we have a choice to make. Are we going to keep it or are we going to allow it to be taken away by people who have come here? This is an immigration issue whether we like it or not. France has this many Muslims because of immigration. It is not traditionally a Muslim society. Muslims migrated to France and that's why they have these problems and we have similar problems in the UK and also because Muslims migrated here. We have FGM, a largely Muslim practice now part of the landscape in the UK. We have had riots in the streets. We have had censorship and violence or threats of violence and we've had a press terrified even to reprint the very cartoons that got people killed in Paris a few years ago. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, has done something quite unusual for a European leader. He has come out strong in defence of French secularism and French freedom of speech. He is doing so against a large sway, large swathes of the Muslim world, not tiny minorities but leaders including the leader of Pakistan and the leader of Turkey who have in a spectacular hypocrisy accused France of not respecting freedom of belief. What France is doing is respecting freedom of belief. It is Pakistan and Turkey who do not respect freedom of belief and they are attacking France as Islamophobes. They are boycotting French products across the Middle East and beyond because the French are apparently excluding Muslims from French society. Let's be very clear. It is Muslims who are excluding themselves from French society. It is Muslims who refuse to accept the liberties upon which France is built and on which French people and Europeans generally fought and died over centuries to create. It is Muslims who want Sharia. It is Muslims who won't accept European culture. It is they who are excluding themselves. And now we have these attacks on France. Anyone would think it was French people who had beheaded Muslims. It's the other way around and yet France has been made the enemy. It's France who is the problem here. This is the Orwellian upside down world we are living in. But it has to be clearer to those of us who are able to see sanity. The real problem here is that Islam does not accept freedom. Islam has come to Europe and it does not accept European freedom and Europeans have watered down our freedoms to accommodate Islam. Now Emmanuel Macron as I say has made some strong defences of free speech, of secularism, but it seems to me that he is standing alone. We should be backing President Macron. I am not a big fan of his, but at this time we need to come together as Europeans and give him our support. As people who believe in free speech we must give our support to Macron. I am asking, I am calling upon Boris Johnson and other European leaders to vocally support and back Emmanuel Macron in his defence of freedom of speech and our right as Europeans to satirise, to mock, to criticise religion or any other form of political power. We must be able to do that. It is fundamental to our democracy and our freedoms. You know Muslim countries are very, very quick to come out and condemn France and yet we in the West it's tumbleweed. We are not coming out and defending our neighbour. We must, we should. So if you believe in free speech defend France, back France and as Middle Eastern countries and beyond are by cutting French products can we buy some, buy something French. When you go out shopping buy something French, buy a few things French. We can still give that little bit of support to the French at this time. They deserve it. They need it. Our democracy, our civilisation, our freedom needs it and requires it. Let's stand up with France, give it our backing, stand shoulder to shoulder with France in defence of free speech across Europe. Boris Johnson say something back him, support him, speak out and make sure they know those across the Middle East who are boycotting us and attacking us, make sure they know that Macron does not stand alone, that Europe, not just France, values its freedoms. Let's say something. Let's give our support to France, to freedom of speech and to Emmanuel Macron.


Have you ever wondered how global food prices are monitored? How is the information of the costs gathered and how is it related to the real prices we pay for buying food in the market? The FAO Food Price Index, which has become the benchmark for tracking changes in international food commodity prices, is a monthly price index produced and published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The index was first introduced in 1996 as a public good to help monitor development in the global food commodity markets. The index tracks price developments from five broad food groups, namely cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat and sugar, using almost 100 price rotations taken from leading exporting countries. It covers 24 food commodities that together account for 40% of global gross agricultural commodity trade. These food commodities are chosen for their high strategic importance and role in global food security and trade. Prices in the various sectors are combined using trade rates calculated from average export values over a chosen three-year base period. FAO also calculates the index in real terms, using a generally accepted deflator, allowing users to compare prices over time. The annual price index series is available all the way from 1961. This effectively empowers nations, communities and individuals to remain totally informed regarding food price inflation and cost trends, as well as the current state of the food market. While the prices measured are not those that consumers find in their local markets, the focus is on export prices of staple food. Items offer information on import costs, as well as guidance for many stakeholders. This helps guide decision and policy making, aiming to promote global food security and as a result, a better, healthier future for all.


Hello and welcome to the craft box. My name is Bryn, I'm joined with Finn and today we're back on Wizard101 for episode 50 of the Road to 100 series. Oh my god. Yes. Episode 50. It's taken like nine months. Well it's nearly been a whole year for me actually. That is true. Yeah. Okay so today we need to talk to Ava the Swift. Here we go. Hello. I was one who fought the Grendels when they attacked this fort. First they attacked in daylight and we fought them honorably. Then they crept over the walls in the night and attacked as we slept. We fought bravely but we defeated. Now this place is called Draugarth, the home of the dead. Wow that was quite interesting. Next person. It is said that the first mother of all the Grendels went to all things in the world and begged them to swear oaths to never harm her child. She went in disguise as a kind old woman and because she seemed harmless all things agreed not to harm her child.  In time the old oaths were forgotten somewhat but those first Grendels could not be harmed by any force and they grew great and ten. Now the greatest and oldest Grendels fear only one thing in the whole of Grizzleheim. Spiders. Go and speak to Soren the Wise and he will teach you to use that knowledge. Wow this is quite interesting isn't it. Soren the Wise. I was blacksmith of this fort and I fought alongside with the warriors with weapons of my own making. My finest weapons were not enough. Our axes shattered, bent against the most powerful Grendel. We lost the battle. That will not happen again. I will show you how to make a weapon with the venom of spiders. A blade that will defeat the Grendels. Soren the Wise teaches you the ancient arts of sword making including some special techniques that will serve against the Grendels. Wow okay that was quite something did you like take all that in them. Yeah dude it's like hardcore. I know right.  There is yeah. Spiders and Grendels. Did the spirits grant you the wisdom to fight the Grendel? This will be a good one to watch. I want to place vets. Who's going to win? Grendels or spiders? I'm thinking spiders. All great heroes need great weapons and the best are those you forge yourself. It's time you had such a win. Go and speak to the blacksmith Einar Thunderhammer. He will show you what to do. Thank you Ducky. Einar Thunderhammer. So my rescuer returns. What can I do for you today? You know how to make a special blade to defeat Grendels? I can't wait to get started but I'll need a lot of help. I'll show you how to forge your blade but I can't do much without my forge tools. The split hooves took them from me when I was captured. After you rescued me I looked around for them but I couldn't fight. Could you go back to the split hoof camp and get my hammer and tongs from them? The one named Bloodseeker has them. Okie dokie Bloodseeker.  He's not very nice. Is he a hard fight? No he's a boss but he's like level three or something so not too hard. Well we each level three's for breakfast. Yeah as you know he might be actually rank five but still not hard. Where am I going? I don't know. I don't know where I'm going. I'm there. He's rank four. I'm here already. Oh god there's a lot of fighting going on man. Do you want me to go on first? Yeah. Oh he's a myth boss. Yeah. Ok. It's the first time we've seen a myth boss since Marleybone. No. We've had some before. No I think this is the last time we were there we had Marleybone because I don't think we saw one an issue. A myth boss. Yeah we did. There's a lot of myth bosses in this issue. Dude I don't like how they cast best spells. It's kind of trippy eh. They do a 360 no scope eh. Yeah it's quite it's quite weird. Oh look it's a thunder snake. Yeah. It's been a while. It has been a while. Welcome back old. Would you say friend? Who's a friend? Thunder snake. There's another friend. Where did my wand go? I cannot see my wand. I can see your wand. I can't it looks like I'm holding nothing but that's fine. Maybe you're just so powerful you don't need to have a wand to cast your spells to. Yeah I could just de-equip it. It'll be quite funny. You can actually de-equip your wand and not use a wand. Really? I wouldn't suggest it but you can yeah. How what's the casting look like for that? It's just let's use you on you maybe so I don't have any boosts. Sure let's do that. Oh look it's Zeus's big brother it's been a while. He's angry. Friend I'm getting I'm starting to get a hold of this like It's a lot like puking man. It's not really. Like some skills are super effective against elbows. It's such and such and such. It's just like a triangle. Yeah What's going on man drawing anything I have to pass. Oh well they're probably dead anyway so it's fine. He's literally dead. Oh this guy may not be dead. Oh no yes don't worry. Don't worry it's fine. Oh it got a little ring from it. I got a mantle clock a cloak and I got a pet snack. Hopefully I get a um hopefully I get something to put up on my wall. I need a house now that's my next buy so I can have a proper memorabilia wall.  Oh yeah. I put them off my wall. It's good to have my tools back. I felt like a part of me was missing. You have earned my gratitude once again. Now we're going to get started. This blade will be forwarded. I think it's going to be like tradition traditions and the new technique you learned in Drogoth. For the metal of the blade we're going to need a lot of peat. Peat is a kind of rotten mud we use to make bog iron. To make the blade deadly against grendels we're going to need spider icor. The easiest way to get some of that is you should be able to find peat and bog spiders in the webwood. I know thunder him. Here we go. You brought back some peat and spider icor just like I asked. Now on to the next step. I'll begin burning the peat down to get the bits of iron out of it. It's a long and dull task so I won't trouble you with it. What I need next is beyond my ability to retrieve. The stinger of the spider queen scothey, mightiest of the spiders. Scothey lurks deep in a cave in the webwood. I can craft it into the metal of the blade along with the spider icor and that will make the blade a bane to the grendels. Yay. We're defeating the spider queen. Not the spider queen but the grizzled harem spider queen. Is there more than one spruder queen? Well the actual spruder queen is more dense. Who you'll learn about in celestia. Yeah. You know we too. Intrude into my web and you shall pay the price. What were you going to say? Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. I forgot. Um. But what we meant. You know how we take so long to complete worlds. Yeah. Melisthia is probably like Jartin. He's probably taken over the world for his real time. Yeah and who's for that? Us. You. Yeah. That's right. Why is it my fault? Because you never want to record. Hey like. We only upload one video a week. One Liz video a week. Hey I can't record. I'm at school. I know. We only upload. We only upload one Liz video a week as well so. I'm sorry that was a mistake. I messed up a fan.  I forgot it. I forgot it was here. Well why don't you like.  Because I only want to hit other boy people man. You shouldn't be able to hit. You're not meant to hit. It's not what you're here for. I need heroes as well by the way. Um. Yeah. I'm going to hear your next round. If there is an next round. There will be. Because of no thank you.  There won't be an next round don't worry. It's fine. I got the Stinger. I got a Triton scale. I got the Stinger also. But yeah we only upload one Liz video a week. And lots of other people who do walkthroughs upload like a billion. A week. Hey but like we're interesting people. We're more interesting. Yeah um yeah but they upload like five billion a week so. Good work. Are you there? It's an excellent shape as well. You're truly a skilled warrior. Let me get to work on the blade. I know you can't have a rough little metal. Folding the Stinger into it until they're united. He hands the sword to you. This is the finest weapon I have yet forged. You have your blade but it needs to be blessed. Even with the spider stinger it's still just a mortal blade. The blessing of the spirits will give your blade great power. And in this battle you will need every advantage you can earn. Your blade must be thrice blessed. So you must seek the blessings of three spirits. In the woods by the boar camp is an old forest spirit called Iron Splinter. At this camp's waterfall you can evoke a water spirit named Whisper Tide. Finally you can summon a fire spirit called Storm Glare from the campfire outside. I'm back sorry. Outlander I sense in your heart the intent to rid our land of the Grendels. They foul the waters and plague the land. I bless your blade with the grace of water. Go now and use it with great skill. If you're forced to fight this pain will stand to be fought against the Grendels. The act will end with our pride and should be defeated. Show me your sword until I might bless it with the flame of courage. Within the heat of battle it will not fail you. Wow that was easy. I can sense the power that blade now holds. You've now a weapon fit for a hero or even a king. Now that you've got your sword there's little I can do for you. Take it to Hagen Shieldbreaker and he'll guide you to victory. We're nearly done yay. Did Einar Thunder Hammer help you make a blade suitable for a hero? You're well on your way to becoming a hero. But even the greatest hero must choose battles wisely. You don't want to be distracted in your fight with Skellig. The mightiest of these Grendels. Skellig and his Grendels have overrun another fort belonging to our people. A place called Draugarth. Go there and defeat a few of them. They'll be wary of you after that. Okay Draugarth. Oh these people. I remember these people. We're gonna do this off camera and we will be back once we finish these. Okie dokie we just finished that um didn't take too long did it Finn? We got pulled into two different battles. Yeah it was quite funny. Hagen speak to me. That will teach the lesser Grendels to stay out of the way when you face their leader Skellig. Now there's no stopping you from confronting Skellig and driving the Grendel from Draugarth. Go to the fort now and see if you can if the way is not clear. Always remember that spirits contain great wisdom. Seek their counsel. Return here once you know how to enter the fort. Okie dokie. I'm just gonna like muck here. I don't know why I'm just then. Let's go to Draugarth Fort. And we will go look to see if we can get in the building. Ba ba na ba na ba na ba na ba na ba na ba na ba dum. The doors are sealed. You can tell how powerful magic is at work here. This is like I feel like I'm gonna get pulled. You probably are then. Um the doors are sealed that's really upsetting. Those doors were sealed by a powerful Grendel shaman called Thulin. Only those bearing runic talisman to gain your own runic talisman. You must defeat Thulin and take it from him. Oh we need to defeat Thulin. Thulin is literally the only reason why. I'm gonna name my satan. I'm gonna call him Simon. Simon the satan. Hi Simon. Simon the satan. Wow 917 congrats. This is not enchanted so this is probably not gonna do much.  He's dead. What? They did a lot. What? They both died. What? Okay let's put in some more of these. I'm gonna need to go and get some more monstrous. Oh yikes. Can I come too? Yeah. I have two decks. I forgot to look at my other one. Do you usually have two decks? No I only have one at this stage. I get two later. You should have two and then you should have like your PvP deck or like... Why do I need a PvP deck? I don't know. Fight me. Wow that was unnecessary. Um unnecessary like... I'm gonna have to buy another reshuffle because I've almost run out. No it's fine I've got reshuffles. I always carry two it's fine. I'll have to talk to Hagen Shieldbreaker. He's not just going straight back. Port to war. I always carry two reshuffles so like a few of them need one. Just tell me. I carry one. That's how they kept our warriors out of the board. Arunic Talisman. You're as clever as you are powerful. I could sing honeyed words of praise about you all day. But it is teed not words. Now is the time for you to bear your bane blade against scaly leader of these Grendels. Go to Draugarth and drive him from that once better place. Skellick. I know right Skellick. Cheeky. Okay I love this fight it's so cool. I'm here. Same. You find that the runic talisman has already opened the gate to Draugarth. Okay doggie. Yay. Oh yay.  Yeah and then we'll finish the episode once we've defeated Skellick. Because we said we'd have two episodes per area. And it seems to have worked so far. Foolish little hairless one. I cannot be. What's that? A thrice blessed spider bane blade. Get him. Am I gonna make it? I made it just. Like just. I put some more enchants in so it's fine. I could have handled him Brent. I got him. I could have handled him. Yeah man.  Simon the satyr. Carl the centaur. We're all gonna do it. We're gonna do it. I see where you're going with this alliteration. I like it. I like it. Daphne the dryad. Sierra the serif. What's your um what's your um trend called? What? Your trend. The big tree that's comes up and like hits him with the rock. Oh I don't use them anymore. Oh that's a shame. I called my sandstorm Darude. Darudist. Darudist. I look like a synovian and I thought I'm gonna forget. Yeah I've got Darude and then I've got um I don't know what I call my spectral blast. I don't really have an end to that. It's just called the cool op spell. Um I like it. I like it. I like it and then I've got um um what should my scorpion be called? Norman. That's the name of my triumph. What should my scorpion that kiddie spawns be called? Norman the nature's raw. Yeah what should my... Can I hit the boss? Yeah. If he doesn't die? Yeah he won't probably. There's no faint so I would be surprised if he died. He did it. Oh he died. I'm very powerful. I've only just realized how powerful I actually am. But oh well. Hagen we're nearly done with this first place. Yes. Oh my god. Oh yes. Here we go. Yes. Hagen. Hagen shield breaker. You did well. Do we stand here? There you go. Yes. I'm gonna take it as a yes space from the sake of your quiet. What did you ask? Here you are there. Yay Bjorn iron claws. We've finished the first area Finn. Dude. How do you feel? I actually love this place. It's so beautiful. I know. It's my favorite world at the moment. It is my favorite world. Dude it's actually got so cool design. It is. Yeah. Bjorn iron claws. Bjorn iron claw. Hello. It is good to see you once more. You appear well enough. Hagen taught you well. The word of your deeds sped here like on the wind. Our people are impressed with tales of the glory and Outlander as one. But it is still too soon for you to see the king. Deeds grow in telling. Your reputation is great but not yet mighty enough. I sense that you are a great warrior in your homeland. Your own people must have if you wish to earn a heroic name in Grizzleheim Outlander, fate has put you on the right path. A small village called Andersholt is troubled by raiders whose ways are not known to us. Go there and learn what has happened and offer what aid you can spare. Go and speak to Eagle Axe Bearer, the guardian of Andersholt. Thank you guys for watching. Remember to leave a like and subscribe if you want to see more. Next time we will be going into the Vigored Roughland and talking to Eagle Axe Bearer. But anyway, hope you guys enjoyed and remember crafty outside sports. Goodbye. Bye.