Abuse of Women, 21st Century’s Greatest Moral Outrage, Challenge-UN Official

UN Resident Coordinator Gary Lewis called slavery and abuse of women as the 21st century’s greatest moral outrage and challenge in the world, AVA Diplomatic reports.

 “During nearly three decades of my service in the UN, I have seen some of the worst excesses and evils perpetrated against women such as rape as an instrument of war, female genital mutilation, foeticide and infanticide of young girls, trafficking of women and girls, honour killings and now I am starting to see again acid attacks on women,” he said.

The UN Resident Coordinator added that he believes all these come from structure of situation where often men are favored over women in many contexts.

Addressing the participants at the specialized seminar on “Women, Peace and International Security”, at conference hall of Iranian Red Crescent Society on 22 October, Lewis said any type of violence against women needs to be opposed.

He concluded his remarks by emphasizing that all women should be treated with five words: equality, human rights, respect, recognition and dignity.

The conference was organized by Iranian Association of United Nations Studies (IAUNS) in cooperation with Humanitarian Committee of Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and UNIC Tehran on the eve of UN Day 2014.

President of IAUNS Dr. Nasrin Mossaffa in her speech said the Association has always commemorated the UN Day by using the themes and global issues which are important to the world Organization. She added due to importance of role of women in international peace and security, it was decided to have this theme for the UN Day 2014.

More than 80 university professors and students as well intellectuals and government officials participated in the one-day seminar. Other speakers of the seminar were Head of Humanitarian Committee of IRCS Dr. Saeed Mansouri, Representative of ICRC in Iran Mr. Olivier Martin.

The conference continued by having five panels of which the first three ones were chaired by UNIC Reference Assistant Nazanin Ghaemmaghami and Dr. Pouriya Askari.

Topics of the panels were: women, peace and international security; violence against women from sociological and psychological views; impacts of armed conflicts on women as victims of violence; international humanitarian law, international penal law and supporting women and finally women and peacekeeping operations.