Resource Library

ICTJ’s partner Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO) recently opened a new virtual museum and database dedicated to Afghan victims of conflict and human rights abuses. “The Afghanistan Memory House” not only preserves the memory of these victims but helps pave the path for truth and justice. To launch the virtual museum, ICTJ and AHRDO cohosted a panel discussion on memorialization, moderated BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, in ICTJ’s office in New York this past December.

Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the regime has put in place a series of policies severely restricting independent media and giving it all but total control over news outlets and their content. Kobra Moradi is a lawyer and researcher working with Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization and author of the recent report, Afghan Media Under the Taliban: Restrictions and Violations . ICTJ sat down with the author to learn more about what impact these restrictions have had on journalists and the free press, and the important role media can still play in such a repressive regime.

In 2021, there were significant developments, some hopeful and some devastating, in the struggle for truth, accountability, and redress in countries around the world. ICTJ experts covered these events in commentaries and feature stories published on our website and in our newsletters. While 2022 is already underway and we at ICTJ are hard at work, we would like to pause a moment to take stock and reflect on the year that was.

After several years hiatus, ICTJ has recently resumed work in Afghanistan. Last month, ICTJ’s communication intern, Edward Mercado-Gumbs, sat down with expert and cohead of ICTJ’s program in Afghanistan Reem El Gantri to discuss ICTJ’s latest engagement in the country, as well as the prospects for justice and peace.

In what UN Women describes as the “shadow pandemic,” rates of violence against women have soared since the public health and economic crises brought about by COVID-19. With stay-at-home orders in place in countries around the world, women are more susceptible than ever to domestic violence. In countries affected by conflict or repressive rule, all forms of sexual and gender-based violence are on the rise. The ICTJ Gender Modules offer a timely tool to raise awareness about these issues and help develop gender-sensitive responses to them.

ICTJ’s Gender Symposium, held on February 2 to 4, 2019, in Tunis, Tunisia, brought together fearless women leaders working in 8 countries to advance the needs of victims and to bring gender issues to the center of transitional justice processes. What was achieved? What experiences cut across these diverse contexts? Kelli Muddell and Sibley Hawkins reflect on these questions and more in this short podcast.

Nepal’s new local government structure – comprised of districts, municipalities, sub-municipalities, and wards formed within the new federal system under the 2015 Constitution – offers the possibility of some individualized redress for victims at the community-level. This article by Elena Naughton was published in the Kathmandu Post on May 6, 2018.

To mark 15 years of ICTJ, we asked staff past and present for memories that stand out to them - moments that throw the stakes of our work into sharp relief and resonate with them years later. Reshma Thapa, former ICTJ senior program associate in Nepal (2009- 2013), looks back on one particularly poignant dance shared among women in a small village.

Jaya Luintel was a radio reporter in Nepal during the country's civil war, covering the conflict's impact on women. Now, she's helping female victims produce and broadcast their own stories to a national audience. Discover how her organization, The Story Kitchen, empowers women in Nepal.

70-94% of the victims of enforced disappearances are men. But what happens to the women left behind? ICTJ's Amrita Kapur explains why women are uniquely impacted by the crime, and how transitional justice can help.