 My name is Nyashankwa Tha'i. I'm from South Sudan and I'm currently the Acting Executive Director for Assistance Mission for Africa and I'm here at USIP for the South Sudan Working Group. South Sudanese women have come a long way with their contributions. They are amazing women looking at the fact that they have lived in conflict for so long before the CPA, even after the CPA in the 2013 war. And it's still like 75% of the people affected by conflict in South Sudan are women and children. They are facing so many different difficulties but they still rise above that. And I think one major key contribution South Sudanese women have achieved so far and just to connect it to some recent achievements is that they are able to speak up despite the harmful cultural practices, being silenced despite the shrinking of civic space and the lack of having a safe space. But they still talk and they speak up about inequalities, about gender based violence and about other issues that are affecting women and girls. For the current situation there are predictions that they might be a post conflict, post violence election and definitely women and girls are the ones going to get affected. So the role South Sudanese women can play is influence the spaces where they are and the different umbrellas, being the women coalition, being the women block being women in politics and make sure that they play a role where they are part of the process as an equal partner to prevent any post violence that is going to happen. And also to make sure that the 35% quarter is implemented during the election process whereby they can be part of the electoral process and also they can be part of elected women within the system as partners. In South Sudan looking at the harmful cultural practices the way the society is built is built in a way that sexual gender based violence is not recognized as a crime within the grass root community. For example if a girl went through rape they end up marrying her off to her perpetrator because it brings a lot of shame in the state of holding the perpetrator accountable. So recently last year and the year before they have been cases of intimate partner violence that leads to killing and we lost almost three South Sudanese women who were killed by their own partners. What is being done so far there is a lot of awareness raising on that and looking at the fact that this International Women's Day theme for the year 2023 is looking at how people can use technology and innovation to reduce gender based violence. I believe that South Sudanese women use internet use digital spaces to raise awareness and to speak up and as a result some of these partners are being held accountable by the law. And so far partners are working towards that partners such as UNFPA, other UN agencies and local civil society. They are working together to mitigate sexual gender based violence in GBV and currently we have the GBV law, the GBV bill and also we have the family law at the stage of being discussed at the parliament for it to be passed. So for me I think that is an achievement and it is something to celebrate.