The Missing Peace Initiative is a project of The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and Women In International Security. It brings together expert scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and military and civil society actors to examine the issue of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings, identify gaps in knowledge and reporting and explore how to increase the effectiveness of current responses to such violence. View publications from members of our Missing Peace Young Scholars here
June 2018 | Washington D.C.
The two-day workshop will provide an opportunity to update your peers and senior colleagues on your work, examine the current state of research and identify gaps, challenges and new strands of research on preventing and ending sexual violence. In addition, the scholars explored the intersection of policy shaping at both the national and international levels and preventative efforts underway to address conflict-related sexual violence. The objective was to ensure that scholars are well-equipped to communicate their research findings in an understandable and accessible manner to policymakers, where often innovative and important quantitative and qualitative research findings do not translate easily into the policy world.
The workshop featured a presentation and discussion with Dr. Marie Berry, Assistant Professor of International Comparative Politics at the University of Denver. She discussed her work examining how postwar political settlements have created hierarchies of victimhood that facilitated new social divisions and fractured women’s collective organizing, and what these impacts mean for the future prevention of sexual violence. Finally, the workshop organized a “Speed Briefing” session, where through a series of small group discussions, members of the Missing Peace Young Scholars Network had the chance to meet and discuss their research with policymakers and policy shapers in the field of diplomacy, defense, and development.
June 2018 | Washington D.C.Program Book: Young Scholars Network Workshop
As part of a global movement to end wartime sexual violence, more than 70 legal, health, and law enforcement leaders from six African countries will meet in Kampala, Uganda, August 26–28, for the Missing Peace Practitioners’ Workshop.
The workshop provides a rare opportunity for frontline responders—from Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan—to discuss their work on the ground and to trade the tools and techniques they use to document and prosecute sexual violence and support survivors.
Workshop participants will also discuss new findings from a groundbreaking, four-country study on conflict-related sexual violence to be launched at the workshop by the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law. The study, in part, highlights barriers to investigating and prosecuting sexual violence and recommends better training and more funding for those on the front lines.
Workshop participants will brainstorm the role of these day-to-day responders in the reporting, investigation, and prosecution of sexual violence that occurs during periods of armed conflict and other emergencies.
Hosting organizations include the Human Rights Center from the University of California, Berkeley, Women in International Security, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
The Human Rights Center at the Berkeley School of Law published an executive summary and a full report of the findings.
For more information, please see the agenda and event description.
Kim Thuy Seelinger, the director of the Sexual Violence Program, discusses the accountability study.
Women in International Security partnered with the U.S. Institute of Peace , Human Rights Center to host a workshop for the Missing Peace Young Scholars Network on June 4-5, 2015. The two-day workshop provides an opportunity for scholars to update Young Peace Scholar Network on their research, examine the current state of research and identify gaps, challenges and new strands of research on preventing and ending sexual violence. In addition, invited scholars briefed Congressional Staffers on their research at a Bi-Partisan briefing. For more detailed information, including the agenda and biographies of participants, please click
The Missing Peace Young Scholar network also released a brief in July that was supported through the partnership between USIP; Human Rights Center, UC-Berkeley Law; PRIO; and WIIS. Formed in 2013, the network comprises early-career researchers from a wide range of academic backgrounds committed to understanding and ending sexual violence in war. Members have met annually at USIP, most recently for a workshop in June 2015, to examine the current state of our knowledge and identify paths for future research on sexual violence in war. Kerry Crawford, Nicole Gerring, Sabrina Karim, Chloé Lewis, Clemence Pinaud, and Caroline Sarkis— network members—collaborated to write this Peace Brief based on insights from their research on topics related to sexual violence. Dr. Kerry Crawford is an assistant professor of political science at James Madison University.
The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), Women in International Security (WIIS), the Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkley and Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) hosted the Missing Peace Initiative Young Scholars for a panel event on May 23, 2014, at USIP. The Young Scholars Network is an extension of the Missing Peace Initiative and brings together a global community of scholars currently researching innovative methodologies to address the prevention of sexual violence in conflict.
Read the resulting letter to co-chairs of the London Summit, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Ms. Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
In support of the British Government’s June 2014 Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, this event will examine the current research initiatives to end sexual violence in conflict and offer important insights from pioneering studies conducted by members of the Missing Peace Young Scholars Network. The panel will offer an opportunity for international policy and academic communities to identify challenges and gaps in preventing and mitigating sexual and gender-based violence worldwide. The outcomes of the two-day workshop and public event will be forwarded to the co-chairs of the London Summit, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Ms. Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute North America (SIPRI North America), and Women in International Security (WIIS) convened a group of expert scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and military and civil society actors to examine the issue of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings, identify gaps in knowledge and reporting and explore how to increase the effectiveness of current responses to such violence.
Click to see the agenda – The Missing Peace Symposium and the Special Report, “Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, and Ways Forward,” by Dara Kay Cohen, Amelia Hoover Green, and Elisabeth Jean Wood.
The three-day symposium, from February 14-16, resulted in the production of a 12-minute video through the coordination with ARTWORKS Projects and funding by The Compton Foundation. This video highlights key takeaways and messages from the symposium and serves as a way to communicate internationally the key issues covered. The Missing Peace Symposium video is a compilation of invaluable insights from the scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and military and civil society actors who contributed to the remarkable effort and continue to contribute to this issue worldwide in conflict and post-conflict settings.