DUBAI: Regional United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will organize a virtual symposium on the rise in risk of violence against women and girls during the coronavirus pandemic.
The UNFPA’s Arab States Regional Office will organize the one-hour virtual event for journalists and media professionals in the region, according to their statement.
The UNFPA – which is the United Nations organization that specialized in sexual and reproductive health – will live-stream the symposium on Facebook from 12 p.m. until 1 p.m on Thursday, June 18.
“Organizations working to combat gender-based violence worldwide have issued an unsettling amount of reports showing that more violence is occurring against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic,” UNFPA Arab States Regional Director, Luay Shabeneh, said in a statement.
“Given that many of these reports have come from Arab State organizations, it is vital for journalists in the region to not only increase coverage of this issue but to do so in a professional, survivor-centered manner,” the statement read.
The event will focus on connections between health crises, gender equality and gender-based violence, the statement added.
UNFPA data shows that several of the measures used to control viral outbreaks increase risk of gender-based violence by limiting the abilities of “survivors to distance themselves from their abusers” as well as limiting or severing the “survivors’ access to life-saving support.”
Gender-based violence specialists, service providers in crisis countries, women’s rights activists and others will also take part in the event.
UN agency to discuss increased risk of violence against women during COVID-19 in Arab states
https://arab.news/jymx6
UN agency to discuss increased risk of violence against women during COVID-19 in Arab states
- Prominent journalists from the region will join the symposium to discuss the topic
- Data shows some coronavirus measures have worsened the situation of survivors
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
