Note No. 6495

Deputy Secretary-General, Special Representative on Sexual Violence to Make Remarks at Close of ‘Rape in Conflict’ Exhibition, 6 March

The closing ceremony for the exhibition Rape in Conflict will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, 6 March, in the Visitors’ Lobby at United Nations Headquarters in New York.  It is organized by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Delivering remarks during the ceremony will be Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, and Zainab Hawa Bangura, Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.  Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division in the Department of Public Information, will be the Master of Ceremonies.

The photo exhibition portrays the scourge of sexual violence in conflict through the stories of male and female survivors from Nigeria, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  It includes images by Seivan Salim, Andy Spyra, Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Jehad Nga and Will Storr.

Sexual violence is a tragic and often endemic feature of conflict.  The United Nations system, led by the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, works to counter the menace, directed against women, girls, men or boys.  Women protection advisers have been deployed to all peacekeeping missions mandated to protect civilians in conflict zones.  The United Nations humanitarian and refugee agencies have all mainstreamed sexual-violence considerations into their work, and the Organization’s political and peacekeeping missions routinely consider how to address sexual violence in peace negotiations and in counterterrorism strategies.

For more information on Rape in Conflict, please contact Milena Sonnenberg at tel.:  +1 212 963 4710, or e-mail:  sonnenberg@un.org.

For information on exhibitions at Headquarters and for the guidelines governing United Nations exhibitions, please contact Renata Morteo at tel.:  +1 212 963 5455, or e-mail:  morteo@un.org.

For information media. Not an official record.