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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.

A new ICTJ report finds that the time is ripe for Georgia to take meaningful steps to reckon with the dark chapters of its recent past and ensure that abuses never happen again. The report warns that while political conditions in the country may not be perfect, waiting longer to acknowledge victims and deal with the past may lead to more abuses and a possible conflict in the long run.

Since Georgia’s independence in 1991, successive governments have struggled to deal with endemic corruption, organized crime, and various disputes along its borders, which sometimes sparked into armed conflict. Efforts to combat corruption and organized crime through its “zero-tolerance” policy on crime degenerated into extensive human rights violations. These human rights violations most notably involved torture and ill-treatment in detention, arbitrary arrests, and denial of due process protections, as well as confiscations of property.

For years the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) captured thousands of young girls in northern Uganda, forcing them to be not only soldiers, but wives and mothers too. When these women finally escaped their captors, children in tow, they hoped to be welcomed back into their communities. Instead, they and their children were met with rejection because of their time “in the bush” with the LRA. This stigma continues to have severe social and economic consequences for mother and child: they are socially marginalized and can scarcely meet basic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter. The children often cannot afford school, and face scorn when they are able to attend. Since 2015 ICTJ has allied with two local organizations to understand the impact of the lack of accountability for sexual violence committed during the conflict and advocate for redress. Founded by mothers who gave birth in LRA captivity, Watye Ki Gen and the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) work at a grassroots level to confront the pervasive stigma in their communities. They empower children born of wartime rape, and their mothers, both socially and economically. Watye Ki Gen has taken the lead in identifying and documenting children born in captivity and bringing them together in support groups. It provides counseling and support to the children, helping them address the stigma they face both at home and within their communities. WAN advocates for economic independence for formerly abducted women while also providing them with the tools needed to advocate for their rights. It offers literacy classes and other training, and its members petition the government to fulfill its obligations to them and their children. Go inside the work of both Watye Ki Gen and WAN, and meet the inspiring women behind their missions.

The Africa Union's resolution to collectively support a strategy to withdraw from the ICC looks more like a machination of those who have instrumentalized an argument against the court to protect themselves from the long arm of justice, write ICTJ's top experts on Africa.

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. Cristián Correa, Senior Associate in ICTJ’s Reparative Justice Program, shares a story about a Chilean mother's thirst to tell her daughter the truth about their past.

A panel of policy and media experts discusses women's experience in war and the responsibility of media covering their stories at the New York City premiere of a new documentary.

ICTJ has named the globally recognized jurist and human rights expert Juan E. Méndez as its delegate to the Colombian Selection Committee created by the 2016 peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

NEW YORK, February 2, 2016 – A short documentary film depicting the devastating effects of stigma and discrimination against children born of wartime sexual violence, and their mothers, in northern Uganda was released today by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and MediaStorm....

I Am Not Who They Think I Am, a new film by ICTJ and MediaStorm, exposes the stigma facing children born of conflict and their mothers and advocates for their right to reparations and redress from the state.