Thank you profoundly for being here and for sharing your thoughts and your insight.
One thing you touched on is that this is not an ethnic issue and not a religious issue. In my humble opinion, this is something that the west really still has a hard time understanding: that these are not actions as the offshoot of war; that this is not a religious-based thing, not an ethnic-based thing; that this is a purposed targeting of what certain factions see as a weakness or an opening or an opportunity to undermine and destabilize a community. The horrific acts that you speak of serve no other purpose than to destroy the fabric of the communities they affect.
I want to add my voice to yours in underlining that the international community needs to look at this much differently. They need to look at this as something that needs to be put in a defence plan, if you will, when they are engaging in conflicts; like what's happening in Syria, like what has happened in Sri Lanka, like what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, what has happened in Rwanda, what has happened in Bosnia. The west needs to learn from those actions and develop action plans to target its action.
With that in mind, echoing the question of my colleague across the way, what in your opinion can the international community do to ramp up protection for women and young girls in rising conflict areas such as Syria to prevent such acts and/or to protect women or targeted individuals in situations like this?