 Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the United States Institute of Peace, I'm delighted to welcome you to today's event on the protection of gender and sexual minorities during armed conflict. I'm Dr. Joseph Sany, USIP Vice President, leading the Africa Center under USIP Justice Diversity Equity and Inclusion Initiatives. USIP was founded by the US Congress more than 30 years ago with a mandate to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict worldwide. Today's discussion is of particular significance to the Institute's ongoing work and commitment to justice, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, which constitute the foundation of peacebuilding. This discussion is also of direct relevance to USIP's long-standing work to advance the Women Peace and Security Agenda. The Women Peace and Security Agenda has at its heart a commitment to safeguarding the security, dignity and meaningful participation of all persons. Last week, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressed in his first press conference deep concern over the unparallel, I quote, pushback on women's right across the world as well as the increasingly violent repression of civic leaders and erosion of civic space. The gendered nature of such backlash invariably also means heightened risk for gender and sexual minorities, especially in the context of violent conflict. It is therefore particularly timely and important to have a report that gathers and analyzes evidence on the differentiated and disproportionate impact of armed conflict on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse persons as well as the mechanisms and resources available to prevent and address these harms. I am pleased to welcome Mr. Victor Madigal Boros, the author of the report to the UN General Assembly that we will be discussing today. Mr. Madigal Boros is an independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. He began his three-year term as independent expert in January 2018 and is the second appointee to serve in this capacity. Mr. Madigal Boros is a Costa Rican jurist currently in residence at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program as a senior visiting researcher. Prior to this, he served as a secretary general of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. As member of the UN subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture from 2013 to 2016, he was rapporteur on the prisel and oversaw a draft policy on the torture and ill treatment of LGBTI persons. His career in human rights and international law is extensive and distinguished. It is an honor to have you here with us, Madigal. The floor is yours and thank you. Thank you very much. I am delighted and it's a singular honor to be able to be having this conversation today. And of course to Joseph Sani and to the United States Institute for Peace as well as Kathleen, London and Andrew, my word of thanks for being part of this panel. I'm delighted that we're actually taking the invitation to carry out this conversation forward. The mandate of the independent expert was created with the purpose of giving visibility to the way in which violence and discrimination occur in the everyday life of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse persons. It was created with the idea that it would carry out thematic research and gather evidence, analyze it and place that analysis to the service of the international community. The idea is that this research, this conclusion, this analysis forms some form of building blocks, narrative concepts that are used by state and non-state actors in the construction of their work and their strategies aiming at the eradication of violence and discrimination. And the creation of the mandate reveals a singular and extremely important will of the international community is to acknowledge that sexual orientation and gender identity are important factors in the analysis of violence and discrimination and in the understanding of the agendas to further human rights, peace and security and development, which of course are the foundational objectives of the United Nations. This particular report was born out of the need revealed to me in a consultative process carried out in 2020 in which over a thousand persons and organizations and states participated in which the constant message was that on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity there's myriad violations that occur during armed conflict. A context in which there's also an exacerbated functioning of stigma, discrimination and violence. And yet the argument before me, the contention before me was that there's very little evidence and that it has been historically not a common trait that this, the way in which these characteristics, these grounds actually interacted with violence and discrimination during armed conflict have not been studied regularly within the dynamics of conflict. The idea of course is to understand how gender based approaches and frameworks that those frameworks that provide sharp lenses for the understanding of asymmetries of power and violence and discrimination, how they are to be understood in the dynamics of conflict, which of course very much relate to that idea of power and the way power manifests itself. It was also quite important to recognize and study how populations, communities and peoples historically affected by discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity would be part of the processes of peace building and peacekeeping. And this report which actually was carried out as a result of a consultative participative process in which I called for inputs from the international community was eventually published and presented to the third committee of the General Assembly two weeks ago. And I'd like to take a few minutes to take you through what I believe are three main analytical threads that this report presents to your consideration. The first one is the threat concerning the evidence as to how conflict related violence impacts and has intersection with sexual orientation and gender identity. And in this connection, I was able to draw five general conclusions in relation to that evidence. The first one is that sexual orientation and gender identity are present. We see shreds of evidence in any conflict that one sheds some light into. We were able to gather some examples, not only as to how the real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity of victims was at the root of certain forms of violence, but also very importantly how preconception and stigma played a role in the design of certain forms of violence during armed conflict which were designed to inflict damage in enemy forces by parties in conflict through the mechanism of demoralization or inflicting psychological damage. And therefore the report presents a number of those examples. I can pick up a few right now, such as the shreds and I insist these are shreds of evidence coming from the Bosnian war where allegations including the use of homosexual behaviors and imposing them on persons to the effect of utilizing stigma and discrimination to the purpose of humiliate, expunging genitalia to the purpose of eliminating the feature that is in particular supposed to be definitional as to what the male in a particular context is. And finally, we have some evidence that were found by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission in Libya as to the use by particular flag fractions in conflict in particular to reaffirm and underline certain notions concerning masculinity under Salafist views. So from that thread of evidence, the conclusion that one could draw, which becomes a working theory as well, is that there is a tactical use of sexual orientation and gender identity and the preconception and stigma that are attached therein. But we also know in a second thread conceptual and analysis thread that during armed conflict there's also the feature of exacerbated violence and discrimination that was occurring before the conflict or that response to dynamics of stigma, criminalization and pathologization. And therefore we see some examples of the way in which during conflict structures of criminalization are favored as ways of persecuting communities and populations, particularly when it comes to ascertaining certain domination over territories and exercising narratives of domination over certain communities. We see it also not only in the dynamics of conflict, but also in relation to opportunistic behaviors during situation of crisis. So in the case in Afghanistan with the recent takeover of the Taliban and also opportunistic use of humanitarian and emergency measures, such as is the case of the evidence that we have seen coming from COVID-19 response and recovery. And all of these features which replicate themselves in armed conflict and human situations of humanitarian situations that ensue have in common with them this exacerbation of the situation of inequality, an extreme inequality in which LGBT persons arrive to armed conflict. And we can think in this connection with examples, for example, that relate to economic precariousness excessive reliance on informal sectors that are the first to be affected during conflict. And of course inability to rely on financial or other top type of support facilities and of course support networks that include in very many cases the community and the family. The union of these tactical and structural factors also allows for the working theory, which I examine in my report about the strategic use of sexual orientation and gender identity and connected preconception and stigma in relation to overarching political and rhetoric strategies during conflict. And I think this is particularly relevant and very recent when we see some of the political discourses that have been coming out in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where LGBT issues are very insistently used to underline an alleged resistance to so-called Western agendas in relation to LGBTI issues and particular imposition of legal and social models in occupied sections and territories, which replicates the way in which we saw those patterns being implemented since 2014 in Crimea. And of course with the correlative concerns within the population and in particularly LGBT persons in a particular context. The findings of the independent international mission in Myanmar are another example in which in particular the population of trans women and the affectation that they have received of extreme violence and discrimination appears to be not only opportunistic and tactical but also quite significantly strategic in its use as ways not only to inflict and enforce certain gender norms but very importantly as ways to create certain notions within the population. As a result of these patterns, my report also highlights my concern about the systematic exclusion of LGBT peoples from available humanitarian corridors and other type of humanitarian and crisis facilities, including very important medical facilities and safe homes. I was horrified to learn from an activist in Ukraine that in the whole territory in which customarily LGBT people are not admitted or expelled from shelters during this conflict there have only been 16 beds dedicated specifically to LGBT persons in a conflict of the magnitude that we know exists. And I think that this will provide you with an idea of that very particular form in which social exclusion impacts then at the receiving end of this type of not only exclusion but placement in situations of extreme risk. The first one relates to a concept that I have called instrumentalization of prejudice, which comes from a series of experiences of field experiences, the most recent of which is the Colombian peace and truth process. And in relation to which a term called violencia por prejuicio or translated directly violence by prejudice have now picked up that term and I have translated it in my report as instrumentalization of prejudice. And I believe it reflects the idea that in armed conflict we see certain features of the way in which sexual orientation and gender identity are utilized, as I have expressed strategically and tactically as warring techniques to inflict damage in opposing parties and to inflict and create an underlying certain gender norms to the purpose of creating legitimacy and sometimes buy out for territorial domination. Instrumentalization of prejudice has been articulated best in my view in the Colombian case but already one could see indicia of it being expressed by the group of eminent experts in Yemen by the truth and reconciliation commission in Peru as well. And in all of the cases it alludes to this use of the symbolic impact of violence, the use of structures of relation of social contexts within the very specific ways in which violence is exercised. And the hierarchical and exclusionary purpose of violence itself. The last concept that I explore in relation to this line of thinking is that of the very specific catalogs of violence, which can be identified precisely in connection with the context. And which depending on particular context will include from manifestations of a social exclusion to heinous violations. One of the most heinous examples of which is rape so-called corrective inflicted on lesbian women, of which I received multiple allegations of occurrence in armed conflict in different latitudes of the world, including or passing through other violations such as torture and mistreatment, forced nudity, beatings and so on. In all of the cases, what appears to be crucial here is that the identification of catalogs of violence also allows for the further work in which truth and reconciliation or truth commissions carry out their work in identifying patterns which in themselves to the identification of indicia and working theories which can then be tested in judicial venues. That is so much in what concerns this evidence that was made available to me through the submissions in the report. All of these evidence then needs to be placed in the key of regulatory frameworks that are available in international law to the treatment of these issues and in particular to the accountability in atrocity and conflict. And there are four frameworks that have points of connectivity in relation to these type of situations. And those are of course international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, refugee law, and one international public policy framework, which is the peace and security agenda. With its extraordinary flagship, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. And I in my report have examined the way in which these frameworks can be seen as competing or excluding each other or as I conclude, based on the robust findings of a number of treaty bodies and independent experts as well as regional bodies, on the necessary complementarity of these bodies of law, but also very importantly on the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity have not yet been explored to the full extent that is necessary in frameworks of international humanitarian law in which as the Secretary General of the United Nations has explained, sexual orientation and gender identity appear to be blind spots in that particular framework. And of course in international human rights law, where there are a number of instruments starting of course in the visionary work carried out from Vienna and Beijing and the incorporation of gender in these frameworks, which is complementary and are complementary in themselves to the work that has been made to advance gender based frameworks in international criminal law. And in particular, through the gender policy of the prosecutor of the international criminal court, that as we know gives context to the application of the rather outdated definition and perhaps not so contextualized present in the Rome Statue. The report also goes specifically to an exploration of the peace and security policies and agendas and concludes that the implementation of gender frameworks that are ample and inclusive allow the recognition and dealing with the particular issues that the report has identified. This connects with what is a rather heated debate at the moment in international fora, which is the extent and the scope of this gender frameworks and in relation to which I'm very much hoping that this report will make further contribution in addition to the reports on gender that have been issued by the report in previous years. The fundamental conclusion there is that this extraordinary agenda that has done so much to place the disproportionate impact on women and girls and of course that already includes lesbian, bisexual trans women is also a crucial tool to identify the way in which gender preconception and stigma affects and creates this type of strategic and tactical opportunity that I have created evidence and gathered evidence of in my report. I'd like to dedicate a last sentence to the important work that is gathered and that has allowed some of this evidence and findings and it's the work of course in peace building and peacekeeping. And that as we know is highly contextualized to every political process. The report includes an inventory of some of the processes in which elements of gender based frameworks and recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity are present and concludes in the observation of the most recent example, which as we all know is the Colombian process in which a gender based approach, not only created in my view, an incredible opportunity for revealing the texture and the nuance in which communities and populations were affected, not least among them women and girls and lesbian gay bisexual trans and gender diverse persons there in intersecting or auditioning, but also created a very significant opportunity to recognize the value of the collective experience of these communities in the peace building effort, because let us remind ourselves that these communities have very specific mechanisms of resilience and of community based work that can be significant contributions to these processes. As we know, the gender based approach in the peace process was one of the most exploited features in the political process that led to the referendum through which the accords were not taken forward and yet the current Colombian government I'm delighted to let you know, declared publicly in a core in a core group event at the United Nations that I had the honor to chair that they are firmly committed to taking forward the agreements with their gender based approach and all of the commitments of which in relation to which there's several dozen that relate to gender based frameworks and several dozen as well concerning the rights of LGBT persons. This is the first for a of my mandate into this extremely specialized extremely rich area that exists at the intersection of international of the all of these frameworks of international law and policy. And I was mentioning in a preparatory session to all of our distinguished colleagues in the panel that I meant to be a conversation starter because I understand that it's a conversation that requires to be placed and taken forward in the political and legal for at the United Nations. As I said at the beginning I wrap up as I began expressing my delight and the singular honor that is for me to be present in this conversation today. And I thank you so much and will be delighted to take part of the subsequent exchange. Thank you very much. Victor Thank you so much. Victor Mattregal Bourlas the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. We are now going to open it up to our discussants to respond to some of the key factors that Victor has laid out in what he talks about as a hidden debate around gender. And sexual minorities. I'm joined here this afternoon by two very very good colleagues London Bell who co-chairs the executive committee of the US civil society working group on women peace and security. She's been a member of the United Nations Association of the United States of America and the immediate past National Council Secretary. She is also the 2020 African Descent Fellow for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and was recently selected to be at the opening session on the newly formed United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. I will then turn after London offers her immediate response to Andrew Cheatham my colleague here at the US Institute of Peace senior expert working in our executive office. He is a lawyer by training former United Nations official the long history of success working in international affairs and highly complex and crisis environments. In the Middle East and in Africa and we looked to both of them for their perspective from their background and expertise London the opening comments are to you and Andrew. I will note that we will be also accepting questions in the chat room so we look forward to hearing from all of you as well. London welcome. Thank you Kathleen. I want to start out by thanking Dr. Senai for his welcoming remarks as well and Victor. Thank you so much. We are truly grateful for your work as the mandate holder and your truly groundbreaking report on protecting LGBT and gender diverse persons during our conflict and as a member of the US civil society working group on women peace and security. I am very heartened by the opportunity today for an open dialogue on the intersectional gender approach to the women peace and security framework. I'm also very eager for our members and the broader community to engage with you on your recommendations on ways we can work to promote the rights of LGBT and diverse persons during conflict. And for our working group particularly to explore and create long term strategies specifically around coalition building to ensure the rights of LGBT and gender diverse persons that the rights of gender diverse persons and LGBT folks are protected. And so I have I'm listening to your your presentation today. I have one question that I'd like to start to ask you in response to more calls on the intersectional gender approach to WPS. Has there been any discussion on creating an additional UN Security Council resolution specifically recognizing the disproportionate impact of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity during our conflict. If not, should we be having that discussion. And I'm going to hold for a moment Victor on that and turn it to Andrew for his comments and also initiation of any question. Thank you Kathleen and thank you to Dr. Sonny for his opening remarks. Thank you London for having me here with you and a special thanks to you Victor for your remarks and all of your work as London said as the mandate holder for this special work. As they have been an expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. I think the support for your work in the previous High Commissioner was shown visibly through the work of the Office High Commissioner for Human Rights and President Bachelet was a champion of your work and that's clear. I think with the incoming new High Commissioner Mr. Volker Turk referenced by Dr. Sonny. I think it presents maybe an opportunity to have a discussion about how and because of his work in the secretariat and his work with UNHCR and other parts of the organization within the UN. There may be opportunities to discuss in the context of your findings of your report how action can be taken now in partnership with UN entities but also of course the partners on the ground civil society organization and the human rights defenders on the ground. And I would like to ask you about potential programs in three main areas. One that looks at the real time threats that you your report really highlights the nature of the violence the spectrum of the violence that you that you mentioned and how heinous it can be and horrible it can be for people. And in that respect I know you've done a lot of work in partnership with UNHCR and UNHCR has done a lot of work on the policy and legal front to open up space for asylum seekers. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about how partnering on the ground in certain context. Maybe some of the context you've mentioned in the report might help the evidence gathering that you're doing to actually bring people out of these violent situations and help opportunities for asylum elsewhere in protection. The second sort of forward looking programmatic element that I would love to hear more about and discuss more about is this peace process work that you talked about. I've heard you elsewhere talk about Indonesia in the 2005 peace agreement and how that was an example of how there was not enough thinking and voices from the LGBT and gender diverse communities in the process. So how do you see partnering with the secretary and the Department of Peacekeeping political affairs perhaps maybe UNDP that's my former entity in these peace processes to bring in these voices. And actually make them transferable into the as you mentioned in the report the transitional arrangements up to and including constitutional arrangements where these protections can be embodied. And like you said in your remarks so that we can move away from these structural components of violence against LGBT and gender diverse communities. And then thirdly unfortunately I think in a lot of cases despite the innate protections in international human rights law international humanitarian law and other legal regimes that you highlight. You've also of course highlighted the need for further explicit development and protections in those legal regimes. But also amidst armed conflict as we know especially within non international armed conflict where you have de facto non state actors in an area we find a special violence against LGBT and gender diverse communities. And unfortunately in those in those situations it's hard to enforce international human rights law international community. So this accountability framework and the evidence gathering that you're talking about is so important. I would like to want to hear what you maybe think about the new work in accountability general the broader framework and you as great jurors know the work that's being done a lot of it spurred from the work in Ukraine on this network of universal jurisdiction and provide and work on in extraterritorial arrangements for web of accountability supported not only by the ICC and international bodies but also by domestic courts around the world and how you might think that could play into the evidence that you found. So I know that's a lot. We don't have to cover it all today, but you just it's such an important report and I just stimulated a lot of thoughts. Thank you very much. Victor over to you. Thank you very much and of course to you Kathleen, but also to London and Andrew for their very insightful remarks and the invitation to elaborate a little bit in relation to to these issues. I'll take them in succession. London's question related, I think to that very specific point of entry which is the United Nations Security Council. And on this I, I'd like to make reference to three main threads of information here. The first one is, I think that there is a whole set of opportunities that exist within the peace and security architecture at least what I know as the peace and security architecture that very complex series of institutions and methods and mechanisms that exist under the auspices of the United Nations. And of course I see things from my vantage point that of a United Nations mandate holder. So I imagine that that universe of many opportunities and I have a little drawing here when I was firing with one of my colleagues the other day about how those opportunities look. And if you would look at it, it looks like an extremely messy drawing. And I think that it's not because I'm bad at drawing is because actually the system is quite opaque in itself. And, and of course, it concerns the whole dynamic of the international community, the dynamics within the general assembly within actually specialized agendas and public policies, and all of the institutions of the UN family, all of which exist and carry out their programming in situations that may be of conflict, as well as the human rights architecture and the development architecture and committees and so on and so forth. All of those instances represent opportunities to bring these topics forward. But of course, under a very specific set of rules, which, as you know, are both under questioning because of the fact that they were built perhaps for another time in another number of dynamics within the international community and are at the same time under threat, not because of positive forward looking questioning, but because of very real threats of the international order as we know it. And the insertion of this theme in that architecture exists within the context of this extremely volatile political reality. And part of the work of stakeholders and in particular states within the system is also to manage that political environment, right? So part of the questions that I have to myself is one of the invitations that immediately I think you were thinking about London when talking about this was the fact that there has been a number of, you know, one area formula at the very least that related to focusing on gay men by ISIL, which was carried out in 2015. But the fact that it was an area formula will give you very much the key as to what is seen, what was seen in 2015 and what I consider continues to be seen as the difficulties in bringing that issue forward in the most, let's say, formal settings of the Security Council. Now, as my report finds, any analysis of violence and subsequent accountability, reconciliation and truth will be incomplete if there is not a comprehensive gender lens to it. And within a comprehensive gender lens, there are the realities of persons that are impacted by this type of violence and discrimination. So the answer to your question, and I know you meant that a little bit more broad, the specific answer to your question is I definitely think that we should be having that discussion aiming to bring that evidence forward in front of the Security Council in front of the General Assembly as I attempted to do myself. But we also know that there are significant obstacles to that effect. And as that goes on and as those obstacles manifest themselves, I also think that we need to look for openings within the rest of this very complex and opaque system. And there I wanted to make a second point. You may be thinking, London, that I'm abusing the extent to which you actually raise this question, but I hope that it's within that context that you raise it. I think the first one is that idea of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda being in and of itself a main vehicle for forwarding inclusive, comprehensive, truly adequate gender based frameworks and conceptions. And I think that that can be done without losing the importance in absolutely essential historical context of the placement of women and girls squarely in the center of the political debate, but also acknowledging that there are other existences that are impacted by the very same mechanisms. And because the mechanisms are at the origin, I think that there is an importance there. And the other thing that I wanted to highlight is the fact that a lot of this conceptualization, a lot of these building blocks come from the human rights machinery. And as you may know, New York based structures are famously, famously resistant in some cases to the permeation if that word exists in English to those building blocks in the human rights machinery. So I think part of the work is to ensure that there is a coherence and a complementarity. And that includes very much the receptiveness of the Security Council as a body that understands that human rights based approaches are at the base of sustainable peace building and peacekeeping and security. In that sense, what we speak about when we talk about a human rights based approach is non discrimination, participation, empowerment and accountability. That is what basically constitutes a human rights based approach. And the second that you place it there, I'm sure that those are words that are very familiar to the Security Council. But I think that the mystical nature of the term human rights sometimes doesn't do us great service in this connection. And again, thank you London for so generously allowing me to expand views in relation to this issue. I look forward to continued work in the security and peace agenda. And again, I think that the Security Council should assume its role as bringing together all of those concepts. That allows me to go to the main political actor that actually will have a stake in relation to this, which is of course the, I think this person is called in the United States media sometimes as the human rights chief of the United Nations the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the appointment of Volker Turg, former Under Secretary General for Policy in New York, former Assistant High Commissioner at UNHCR is a very, very welcome development for everybody working against discrimination and violence. And because of his particular knowledge of mechanisms that drive discrimination and violence in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity. A most welcome addition to this architecture. High Commissioner Turk and I have been working together in an agenda that he announced last 17 of May, which is the overarching United Nations LGBT strategy for inclusion. And which has as purpose replicating the type of very positive experience that he presided off within UNHCR and extended to all of the members of the United Nations family at the political level, and then make it give the means to have it percolate in the programming action of agencies in the United Nations and as you can imagine, this will include the peace and security architecture, because one of the fundamental elements when you speak with the peace building support office in New York is you realize how quickly the peace building fund the peace building commission, the thematic work of the peace building support office all merge and go to the particular work of United Nations agencies. Those that work in the humanitarian field, those that work in crisis, those that work in emergency, but also those that are working in the operations to reestablish, to establish resilience and so on and so forth. So I think that there's a great, great possibility there. And as you can imagine, Andrew and other colleagues in this conversation. One of the most important experiences that we can draw on is the one created by Directive 9 at the UNHCR, which so effectively brought the specific concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, forcefully displaced persons to the forefront of the work of qualifying officers, interviewing officers, political authorities across borders and within the playbook of UNHCR. I always say to the High Commissioner for Refugees that one of my most extraordinary experiences when I visit the ground is meeting with the colleagues of UNHCR. They will always have their booklet on General Directive 9 or Directive 9 in the desk and I find it to be one of the most extraordinary experiences of mainstreaming the concerns on sexual orientation and gender identity. Andrew, you mentioned quite accurately. I mean, you ran the gamut of concerns that we need to work together in and I'm very grateful to you for that. You oxygenate my thinking, which is delightful. You connected all of that with evidence and we know that one of the most difficult issues. Nobody, nobody will take issue with you colleagues. If you say, oh, we need to get more evidence, we need to get more data. In New York, that was kind of the word that came in every meeting that I had for the last three weeks during my appearance to the General Assembly. But the question is how do you enable the structures to gather evidence. When it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity, how do you gather evidence in the 68 countries that criminalize homosexuality? How do you gather evidence not only because you are in a situation of conceptual self-incrimination when you ask people about who they live, what their sexual behavior is, how they self-identify and so on and so forth. But also very importantly, how do you create the trust with the civil society that has the data, has been gathering it for decades that that data will not be used in a detrimental way. The concept of non detrimental reliance of data gathered in these exercises is a fundamental part of the equation. And in the process of preparing this report, I listened with great concern to the way in which political volatility, which is exacerbated during conflict, of course, creates opportunities for extraordinary abuse. And so organizations that had in good faith shared some data to government that ended up being parted to a conflict found themselves for that data to be utilized for the most horrendous of purposes, the second that the conflict actually turned a certain way against that particular actor. So non detrimental reliance, the rules for gathering data, the way in which data needs to be preserved and can be then in very many ways costed is going to be part of the work. The other part, important in what you mentioned, Andrew, is I shared with with some people the other day that when the Ukraine conflict started, one of the things that came to my attention very fast was the difficulties of trans women who had not received recognition of their gender identity to leave the Ukrainian territory as they are entitled to, but they were not able to because their documents did not correspond to their appearance. And we see this over and over again. And as you can imagine, when the conflict is and was ongoing, it was not the moment for me to recommend to the state that a training program be put in place for border guards. I think the government would have very, very understandably said that my request was actually not timely or pertinent in that time. This is why it's important to have those structures in place before conflict and emergency happen. This is why it's important to give priority to the way in which people basically have the foundation of their relationship to the state. And this is why, in what you were mentioning about, not only the policy level, Andrew, but the implementation and the programming of that policy. We need to have these conditions in place because over and over and over again, we see them replicating and perpetuating exclusion and violations. Kathleen, I know I'm testing your patience, but I promise you, I'm only going to use two more minutes. As I, as I imagine that we want to move to another level in the conversation. We have about seven minutes, so. Oh, you're so kind. And I'm going to, as I have the floor here, as you add to the conversation, I would love to hear more about what has been the response of your report at the UN and other international actors. Where do you see openings at this point? I'll leave three minutes for that. And then I will use four to complete the beginning of this conversation with Andrew, of which I'm delighted, of course. Indonesia is a very good example of how the non-involvement of communities completely extracts the knowledge that they have about the dynamics and where the risks lie. And this relates, of course, to the particular of the agreement that allowed the preponderance of a certain understanding of Sharia in the HF province that has led to the most horrendous violations against trans women in the HF province. In my view, because there was no participation of these communities in an understanding of what that political compromise meant in practice. But I would also like to underline in relation to this that there is an importance in not only using the knowledge of communities about the factors that create risk, but also very important their knowledge about the particular way in which violations are replicated. One of the constant constant informations that I received is that in conflict when humanitarian assistance is provided and is delegated to community and religious leaders. There is a great risk that the provision of assistance is going to replicate the way in which discrimination operates at a community level. So, myriad persons came to me and said, my family did not get the family support or food package, because when I went to the top of the line, the community leader that was distributing said yours is not a real family. And I'm not giving you this package because it's meant for families. And you see in a very concrete way how this structure of understanding what a family is, is actually manifesting itself in the way people have access to food or have access to hygiene. And I would submit, Andrew, that this is the reason of not having consulted the communities what would be the consequences of delegating a certain type of community or religious leader or not requesting safeguards or providing an understanding of the way that the assistance would have to be provided. And you've alluded to all of these elements in relation to this. Andrew, we're going to need to talk about the network of universal jurisdiction at a later time, but I can assure you, you have conceptually invited me to many, many cups of coffee or maybe even glasses of wine by just raising this concept of which I do have some views, some of which are very positive as to the possibilities. So let me just leave you with that teaser there so that we can actually take it forward. A conversation to which of course Dr. Sani and Kathleen and London are also very, very invited. To Kathleen Kunast, I would just like to say that the reception of the report has been, I would say that there's three key sentences that I would describe for that. The first one is there has been enthusiastic reception of both the political processes within the United Nations. So I'm talking the type of peace building architecture institutionalities, the UN institutions, the UN family members, as well as of course as the processes led by the secretary general. And in all of those processes, there has been what I would say enthusiastic reception by the placement of this issue in the agenda. Placing it in the context of the larger community of states, I think there has been a very vigorous and robust engagement by a group of countries that are not necessarily the only ones that support my mandate. But also some of the countries that have suffered internal strife. So I was delighted, for example, by having a long conversation with Angola, the representatives of Angola in my appearance to the third committee. So there you have an example of a country that in a very specific way requested information as to how these tools could be useful to expand these frameworks. I have vigorous engagement, of course, of the countries of the core group, which include our large community of states. My concern lies with the countries that continue to deny that sexual orientation or gender identities are valid points of entry in the analysis of violence and discrimination. That continue to say that those words need to be taken out of public policy and regulatory frameworks. And that continue to deny that LGBT persons actually suffer violence and discrimination because they are LGBT persons as well as a myriad other identities that they reunite in their bodies. And of course, I am inviting those states to continue being open to the evidence that I'm presenting them about the fact that their work and their accountability to the people living under their jurisdiction is going to be compromised if they don't actually take this into account. Thank you, Victor. I think you began by saying this is a conversation starter. We are going to hold you to the continue conversation that you have laid out today. First of all, we appreciate your dedication, your courage and your persistence in your efforts to provide evidence and importance of gender inclusivity for both sexual orientation and gender identity dynamics. So thank you for taking the time today with the US Institute of Peace. I want to thank my colleagues London Bell and Andrew Cheatham, Joseph Sonny and all the people behind the scenes that help me this program today, a success. Thank you and we will end our conversation but only look forward to the next one. Thank you, Victor.