On International Women’s Day, we honour the tireless efforts and indispensable contributions of Syrian women and girls in their unwavering pursuit of justice and accountability, despite the many risks and challenges.
Women human rights defenders, activists, and feminist-led organizations have actively engaged with our work, not only sharing valuable material but also shaping the IIIM Gender Strategy with their insights.
Throughout the conflict and continuing until today, Syrian women exhibit remarkable resilience and determination, ensuring support for victims and survivors across diverse communities in overcoming obstacles to justice. The IIIM is committed to advocating for space for their voices to be heard throughout international justice processes. Inclusive justice requires proactive steps, from identifying and interviewing female witnesses to include in evidence collection, to sharing analytical products with competent jurisdictions that reflect the distinct harms experienced by women and girls.
Our Children and Youth Strategy, scheduled for public release this year, has also been enriched by discussions with girls inside Syria. Today, let’s recommit to a world where their future is free from social and legal inequalities, and their right to justice transcends gender boundaries.
Here’s to our collective efforts in ensuring a just and equitable world for women and girls—every day of the year.
Victim/survivor-centeredness, data protection and open-source collection in accountability: lessons from IIIM-Syria
As part of a series on Cybersecurity and Data Protection on the ICRC Humanitarian Law and Policy blog, IIIM Associate Legal Officer Rayyan Ghuma and Information and Evidence Officer Birhane Wossen Reta, contributed a post exploring how the IIIM’s Victim/Survivor-Centred Approach (VSCA) is applied to its data protection and open-source research processes. The post outlines the IIIM’s attention to victim/survivor rights, and the development of internal processes and frameworks that protect those rights at every stage of its work with data.
Read the full article here for further details on this important feature of inclusive justice, as well as how the IIIM’s VSCA would guide open-source collection.