UN Women for Peace Association (UNWFPA) convened a conversation, “Isis and its Impact on Women,” last week at United Nations Headquarters.
Chairman Muna Rihani Al-Nasser welcomed everyone and spoke passionately, saying “we have to stand up and be together and fight. There is a responsibility not only of our governments but each one of us.”
She called on UN Executive Director of Counter-Terrorism Jean-Paul Laborde to discuss the UN’s response. “To put in place the right procedures,” Laborde said passionately, “in order to help these people, these persons, this half of society, to be treated fairly.”
The evening was emotional as a 20-year-old girl, using the pseudonym Bazi, told her story in heartbreaking detail; she’d been sold more than 20 times by ISIS, including once to an American ISIS fighter.
UNWFPA board member Rema DuPont introduced Khidher Domle, an activist and journalist who, while covering stories of kidnapped girls like Bazi, earned their trust enough to coordinate their escapes with, as DuPont says, “only a burner phone and a steadfast sense of responsibility.”
More than 130 people attended the conversation including Carole Acunto, Bilha Fish, Marlene Herring, Bevery Schreiber Jacoby, Elizabeth Jacoby, Miriam Khrari, Lila Prounis, Evelyn Tompkins and Nassrin Zahedi, while more than 40 others waited outside the doors, as UN Security stopped allowing guests in when the room reached capacity.