Media Releases

Alaa Murabit, Voice of Libyan Women co-founder, to keynote “Sexual Violence in the Recent Conflicts in Libya and Syria” conference on Feb. 8, 2013

February 7, 2013

TORONTO, ON — Twen­ty-three year old Alaa Mura­bit, co-founder of the grass­roots move­ment Voice of Libyan Women, will be the keynote speak­er on Feb. 8, 2013 at an inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence high­light­ing the issue of sex­u­al vio­lence in the wake of the Arab Spring.

“Sex­u­al Vio­lence in the Recent Con­flicts in Libya and Syr­ia,” host­ed joint­ly by the Fac­ul­ty of Law’s Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Pro­gram and the U of T Munk Cen­tre of Glob­al Affairs, will dis­cuss the chal­lenges of doc­u­ment­ing cas­es of sex­u­al vio­lence against both women and men, sup­port­ing sur­vivors, pur­su­ing account­abil­i­ty in inter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal law and the role of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in respond­ing to these unfold­ing human rights abus­es.

Mura­bit, in train­ing to be a med­ical doc­tor, has vis­it­ed remote areas of Libya to hear sto­ries of sex­u­al vio­lence direct­ly from women. She advo­cates for Libyan women’s polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion and eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment, and is cur­rent­ly draft­ing a “women’s char­ter.”

Oth­er speak­ers include: Dr. Laila Bugaighis, med­ical direc­tor of the Beng­hazi Med­ical Cen­tre, and polit­i­cal and human rights activist; Lau­ren Wolfe, jour­nal­ist and direc­tor of Women Under Siege, a project that uses inno­v­a­tive crowd-source map­ping to doc­u­ment sex­u­al vio­lence in Syr­ia; and U.S. Ambas­sador Patri­cia M. Haslach who will speak about the inter­na­tion­al community’s role in pre­vent­ing and doc­u­ment­ing cas­es of sex­u­al vio­lence.

View the full list of speak­ers, includ­ing human rights defend­ers, aca­d­e­mics, inter­na­tion­al lawyers and pol­i­cy mak­ers from around the globe. Read the back­grounder on the issues.

EVENT INFO:                                      

WHAT: Voice of Libyan Women co-founder, Alaa Mura­bit, to keynote “Sex­u­al Vio­lence in the Recent Con­flicts in Libya and Syr­ia” con­fer­ence

WHEN: Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2013; 8:30 am – 5 pm (Reg­is­tra­tion opens at 8:00 a.m.)

WHERE: Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Fac­ul­ty of Law, Flavelle House, Ben­nett Lec­ture Hall, 78 Queen’s Park Cres­cent [Muse­um sub­way stop] (Map: http://goo.gl/maps/Huu6g)

RSVP: Seat­ing is lim­it­ed; media are asked to RSVP to lucianna.ciccocioppo@utoronto.ca

INFO: Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Pro­gram

The con­fer­ence is gen­er­ous­ly sup­port­ed by the Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties Research Coun­cil of Cana­da, the Law and Devel­op­ment Pro­gram at the Fac­ul­ty of Law, Human Rights Watch Cana­da, the Cana­di­an Libyan Coun­cil and the Jour­nal of Inter­na­tion­al Law and Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions.

-30-

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Lucian­na Cic­co­ciop­po, BA, MA (Jour­nal­ism)
Direc­tor, Exter­nal Rela­tions / Exec­u­tive Edi­tor, Nexus
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Fac­ul­ty of Law
84 Queen’s Park, Toron­to, ON Cana­da
416.946.0334
lucianna.ciccocioppo@utoronto.ca
www.law.utoronto.ca
Fol­low us: @UTLaw and our Dean: @mayomoran