Founding Head of Bar-Ilan’s Rackman Center, Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, has spoken out about the delay from UN bodies, and international women’s organisations, to publicly acknowledge gender-based violence on 7th October.
Prof Halperin-Kaddari, who spent 12 years as a member of a UN convention on discrimination against women, said she and others have been calling on UN bodies to acknowledge these “crimes against humanity”.
“Regrettably, until a week ago, none of them said the explicit word ‘sexual violence’. It took them more than seven weeks,” she said. The UN has yet to respond to accusations of a delay, but Prof Halperin-Kaddari visited the UN in Geneva just a week ago to draw attention to the violence.
UN Women issued a statement – eight weeks after the attacks – acknowledging accounts of gender-based atrocities.
“This took them too long, much too long,” Prof Halperin-Kaddari added.
