Sexual Violence in Ukraine

By Staff Writer Sydney Smith Content Warning: sexual violence On March 9, 2022, Russian soldier Mikhail Romanov barged into the home of a mother in the Kyiv region of Ukraine where brutally he took the life of her husband, forcibly undressed her, and gang raped her with a pistol to her head. The raping took place over three separate occasions while her child bore witness. This horrific story is just one account of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) that has been documented thus far in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A report from the OHCHR identifies 108 allegations of CRSV against women, girls, men and boys from February 24 to May 15, 2022 in eleven Ukrainian cities and in a detention facility in the Russian Federation. Although rape and gang rape are the highest reported allegations, at seventy-eight, CRSV takes on many forms and this report alone includes seven attempted rapes, fifteen forced public strippings, and eight other accounts of sexual torture, sexual...
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Turkey’s Alarming Regional Intervention Continues to Affect Minority Communities with Impunity, This Time in Azerbaijan

Turkey’s Alarming Regional Intervention Continues to Affect Minority Communities with Impunity, This Time in Azerbaijan

By Guest Contributors Anoush Baghdassarian and Sherin Zadah Tucked away into the southern caucasus is a region struggling for survival, not against COVID-19, but against yet another offensive by Turkey, this time in Azerbaijan, targeting the region's minority populations.   On Sept. 27, 2020, a war broke out in the Republic of Artsakh, also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). The conflict is mainly between Armenia, the ethnic Armenians of NKR, and Azerbaijan, but Turkey is also a player in the conflict; it has pledged support for Azerbaijan, closing its border with Armenia and reaffirming Azerbaijan’s claims to territorial integrity.  Amid the current crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to “support our Azerbaijani brothers with all our means as always,” including military assistance. This manifested into a coordinated premeditated attack against one of its historic minority communities — the Armenians. This follows shortly after Turkey’s crimes against the Kurds, another one of its repeatedly persecuted ethnic groups. Turkey launched a targeted military campaign...
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Non-Violence in Communal War in Central Nigeria

Non-Violence in Communal War in Central Nigeria

By James Courtright, Staff Writer for RightsViews On January 30th Dr. Jana Krause came to speak with students and faculty at Columbia’s School for International and Public Affairs about her new book, “Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War.” Her work centers on communal conflict - non-state armed conflict between identity groups - in Plateau state in Nigeria and Maluku province in Indonesia. In both places the violence tended to be simplistically referred to as Christian against Muslim, but upon further investigation she found it was deeply rooted in local political and economic dynamics and narratives. After explaining how communal violence was organized, she then delved into neighborhoods in Nigeria and Indonesia where violence did not occur, analyzing how the choices of civilians and their collective efforts to prevent fighting saved the lives of hundreds of people. Conflict in Jos When she first visited Jos, Nigeria in 2010, Dr. Krause had to pass through multiple checkpoints along the road from the...
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A Living Text? Dr. Hugo Slim on War, Humanity, and the Geneva Conventions under the ICRC’s Mandate

A Living Text? Dr. Hugo Slim on War, Humanity, and the Geneva Conventions under the ICRC’s Mandate

By Rowena Kosher, Co-Editor of RightsViews The International Committee of the Red Cross’ (ICRC) reverence for its mandate to the Geneva Conventions was obvious as Columbia students welcomed Hugo Slim, ICRC’s Head of Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy Division, to speak on “War and Humanity: Challenges and Trends in the 70th Year of the Geneva Conventions” on November 6. From its founding in 1863 in Geneva, the ICRC has been committed to the provision of international humanitarian aid, embedding itself as one of the core players in international humanitarian law (IHL) as it developed over time to regulate jus in bello, or the “conduct of war.” It was the ICRC that convinced states in 1864 to adopt the very first Geneva Convention, creating a universal obligation of care for all wounded soldiers. From that moment on, it was also the ICRC that ultimately headlined what the IHL community now holds as some of its most fundamental texts: the four Geneva Conventions of 1949...
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