The United Nations Office at Geneva
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UN Geneva Press Briefing - 09 December 2025
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Press Conferences | UNICEF , UN WOMEN , UNHCR , UNFPA , UNDP , UNIS
UN Geneva Press Briefing - 09 December 2025
TOPICS
UNICEF Ricardo Pires (PR) with Tess Ingram, UNICEF Communication Manager (From Gaza)
- The toll of maternal malnutrition and unrelenting stress on newborn children after two years of war and fragile ceasefire.
UNDP Sarah Bel with Azusa Kubota, Resident Representative (From Colombo)
- Rapid damage assessment on the floods in Sri Lanka.from
UNFPA Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA Representative in Sudan (From Port Sudan)
- Conditions in maternal health facilities and women and girls safe spaces in Northern State and Khartoum, following a visit to these locations.
UN WOMEN Sofia Caltorp (Zoom) With Yeliz Osman, Policy Specialist, Ending Violence against Women and Girls & Julie Posetti, Lead Report Researcher
- Launch of the report on online violence against women human rights defenders, activists, and journalists on the International Human Rights Day.
UNHCR Matthew Saltmarsh with Nicolas Brass, UNHCR’s Chief of the Global Compact on Refugees Section
- Geneva gathering to reaffirm solidarity and deliver new results for refugees
ANNOUNCEMENTS
UNIS on behalf of UNESCO IBE
UN INFORMATION SERVICE GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING
9 December 2025
Situation of children and mothers in Gaza
Tess Ingram, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), speaking from Gaza, said that at least 165 children were reported to have died painful, preventable deaths related to malnutrition during the war. But far less reported had been the scale of malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the devastating domino effect on thousands of newborns. The pattern was clear, said Ms. Ingram: malnourished mothers, giving birth to underweight or premature babies, who died in Gaza’s neonatal intensive care units or survive, only to face malnutrition themselves or potential lifelong medical complications.
Before the horrors of the last two years, an average of 250 babies per month – 5 per cent – used to be born with low birth weight, or weighing less than 2.5 kilograms at birth. In the first half of 2025, even with fewer births, more babies had been underweight: 10 per cent of all births, or about 300 babies per month. In the three months before the ceasefire, from July to September, this had surged to an average of 460 babies every month, almost double the pre-war average. In Gaza’s hospitals, Ms. Ingram had met several newborns weighing less than one kilogram, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive. Low birth weight infants were about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight; they needed special care, which many of the hospitals in Gaza had struggled to provide. Data also showed the number of babies who had died on their first day of life increased 75 per cent – from an average of 27 babies per month in 2022 to 47 babies per month between July and September 2025.
Between July and September, about 38 per cent of the pregnant women screened by UNICEF and partners had been diagnosed with acute malnutrition. UNICEF continued treating them in high numbers. In October alone, UNICEF had admitted 8,300 pregnant and breastfeeding women for treatment for acute malnutrition – about 270 a day – in a place where there had been no discernible malnutrition among this group before October 2023.
Having spent many months in Gaza over the past two years, Ms. Ingram had seen and heard the generational impacts of the conflict on mothers and their infants almost every day; in hospitals, nutrition clinics and family tents. It was less visible than blood or injury, but it was ubiquitous. UNICEF was responding: replacing the incubators, ventilators and other lifesaving equipment destroyed; providing supplements to over 45,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women to prevent malnutrition; screening over 150,000 under five year years for acute malnutrition and enrolled over 14,00 in treatment; providing breastfeeding counselling for over 14,000 caregivers, as well as mental health and psychosocial support. To improve the response, more aid had to enter the Gaza Strip, especially aid that strengthened the health of pregnant and breastfeeding women and equipped hospitals with everything they need to save lives.
Answering questions, Ms. Ingram said that October 2025 had seen the highest number of the year for pregnant and breast-feeing women admitted for treatment for the year, partly because UNICEF now had the supplies to treat pregnant and breast-feeding women. Some 4,000 children were estimated to still need medical evacuations from Gaza. The rate of malnutrition for children and pregnant and breast-feeding women remained stubbornly high. Some 9,300 acutely malnourished children under five had been admitted for treatments in October, down from the peak in August. The expected opening of the Rafah crossing would hopefully increase influx of necessary foods and supplies. Most families currently could not afford the very expensive food available at local markets. There were many examples of women barely eating and sacrificing themselves to feed their children. On another question, Ms. Ingram said that since the ceasefire, an improvement had been measured in the quantity of aid being picked up, but it was still nowhere near enough of what was needed. Since the beginning of October 2023, 165 children had died of malnutrition, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Ms. Ingram, who would soon be leaving Gaza, said that over the past two years she had seen the best and the worst of humanity. She spoke of people begging her to tell the world of their suffering and that they just wanted to live in dignity. The bedrock of international law had been broken in Gaza, and injustice had been normalized. She was leaving a place where the people needed international support and recognition as much as ever.
Medical evacuations were complex procedures that required numerous clearances, added Christian Lindmeier, for the World Health Organization (WHO). The total of 10,620 patients had been evacuated from Gaza since October 2023, half of whom were children. People, including children, had died while waiting to be evacuated. Mr. Lindmeier stressed the need for more countries to accept patients medically evacuated from Gaza.
Assessment after the floods in Sri Lanka
Azusa Kubota, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka, speaking from Colombo, stated that the recent disaster was a stark reminder of the growing climate risks Sri Lanka faced and the urgent need to strengthen resilience. UNDP, in collaboration with the Government of Sri Lanka and partners, had conducted a rapid integrated assessment to understand the scale and urgency of this crisis. An estimated 2.3 million people had been living in areas flooded by Cyclone Ditwah that had hit Sri Lanka; 635 people had lost their lives and 192 were still missing. The analysis showed that the floodwaters from the cyclone had inundated more than 1.1 million hectares – one fifth [SB1] of the country’s land area and caused significant damage to homes, infrastructure and essential services. Over 1,200 landslides had been registered. More than half of the people in the flooded areas had already been living in households facing multiple vulnerabilities before the cyclone, including unstable income, high debt, and limited ability to cope with disasters.
Ms. Kubota said that the scale of the disaster was staggering. One in every twelve buildings in Sri Lanka had been touched by floodwaters. More than 16,000 kilometers of roads had been exposed. Over 60 per cent of all exposed people were concentrated in Colombo and Gampaha districts, placing immense pressure on essential services and local systems. It was estimated that Cyclone Ditwah had exposed over 530,000 hectares of rice paddies to flooding across Sri Lanka, with direct impact on the livelihoods of many. Ms. Kubota stressed that many of the hardest-hit areas had already been among the most vulnerable nationwide, while climate shocks were outpacing the current capacity to adapt. She emphasized that UNDP was committed to supporting both immediate relief and long-term recovery. Priorities were to restore basic services, strengthen local capacities, and direct resources to the areas with the most urgent needs, while developing long-term resilience.
More information is available here, while the full analysis and set of data can be accessed here.
Conditions for women and girls in Northern State and Khartoum, Sudan
Fabrizia Falcione, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative in Sudan, connecting from Port Sudan, said that if this war had a face, it would have a face of a woman. Not a single new mother Ms. Falcione had recently met had had any antenatal checks. The great majority of pregnant women had lost their husbands, leaving them as the sole breadwinners of their families. Women living in camps for internally displaced persons said that access to toilets was their top need, followed by bread. Ms. Falcione spoke of a young girl who had just given birth to a baby conceived in rape. Some displaced women were doctors, nurses, teachers, now struggling to survive, but also using their skills to support other women in camps. UNFPA was providing obstetric care, psychosocial care, through reproductive care services and in safe spaces. These services were a lifeline, but only if they could continue. UNFPA had received 42 percent of the funding it needed. UNFPA was appealing for USD 160 million for 2026. She reminded that over 12 million women and girls were at the risk of gender-based and sexual violence. The world should not forget the people of Sudan, concluded Ms. Falcione.
Replying to questions from the media, Ms. Falcione said that one of UNFPA’s concerns was about mothers giving birth to babies conceived in rape. Real numbers were difficult to provide because of the obstacles collecting full figures and the stigma of reporting rape. UNFPA was going to continue providing support for the survivors of sexual violence, and was hoping to increase psychosocial support.
Pernille Fenger, head of UNFPA Geneva, informed that on 11 December UNFPA would launch its 2026 Humanitarian Action Overview, an annual report that highlighted the organization's critical work in crisis settings. The event would be webcast live, and shown live on Zoom here, with interpretation in Arabic, French, and Spanish.
Online violence against women human rights defenders, activists, and journalists
Yeliz Osman, UN Women Policy Specialist, Ending Violence against Women and Girls, said that the new report, Tipping point: The chilling escalation of violence against women in the public sphere, showed that 70 per cent of surveyed women had experienced online violence in the course of their work. Even more worryingly, 41 per cent of respondents reported offline harm linked to online abuse, proving that online violence had very real-life consequences. For women journalists, the link between online abuse and offline harm had become more concerning: in a 2020 global survey published by UNESCO, 20 per cent of women journalists associated the offline attacks or abuse they experienced with online violence. In the new 2025 survey, that share of journalists and media workers had more than doubled to 42 per cent. The report also found that close to one in four surveyed women human rights defenders, activists and journalists had experienced AI-assisted online violence, such as deepfake imagery and manipulated content. Writers and public communicators who focused on human rights issues faced the highest exposure, at 30 per cent.
Women who spoke up for human rights, reported the news or lead social movements were being targeted with abuse designed to shame, silence and push them out of public debate. Increasingly, those attacks did not stop at the screen but continued offline as well. Impunity had to end; some two billion girls lived in countries without adequate laws to protect them from violence online. Effective implementation of such laws had to be ensured. Specific measures protecting women in public life had to be put in place. Finally, further investment was needed in both raising awareness and research and data to monitor trends, to understand intersectional impacts, and to inform evidence-based policy and practice. The tech sector had an important role to play, stressed Ms. Osman.
Julie Posetti, Director of TheNerve’s Information Integrity Initiative and lead researcher of the UN Women report, said this data showed that in the age of AI-fueled abuse and rising authoritarianism, online violence against women in the public sphere is increasing. But what was truly disturbing was the evidence that women journalists’ experience of offline harm associated with online violence had more than doubled since 2020 – with 42 per cent of 2025 survey participants identifying this dangerous and potentially deadly trajectory
Responding to questions from the media, Ms. Posetti explained that participants in the survey had been given a chance to identify types of harassment they had experienced online. She spoke of the worrying effective use of disinformation tactics. For example, Daphne Galizia, the murdered investigative journalist in Malta, had been targeted online in the line-up to her assassination. On another question, Ms. Posetti said that there was a wide range of perpetrators, including presidents and prime ministers around the world, including Brazil, the Philippines, and the United States. This represented a continuum of violence against women, which tended to stir up the mobs online. Some influencers, such as Andrew Tate, used their online presence to roll back women’s rights. Effective regulatory mechanisms were urgently needed, which would protect the rights of women journalists and others acting in public interest.
Replying to more questions, Ms. Osman stressed that education programmes, social norm change programmes and engaging men and boys as allies could all make a difference. She listed several initiatives to turn the tide, including UN Women’s “HeForShe” initiative. Ms. Posetti added that AI technologies could be used for early detection in real time, while continuing down the path of developing regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, nowadays, hate speech was being prioritized through algorithms. There was no right to commit hate speech under international law, stressed Ms. Posetti. Journalists, including women journalists, had to be allowed to safely practice journalism online. Human rights had to be preserved and protected online the same way it was done offline.
Global Refugee Forum Progress Review
Matthew Saltmarsh, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), stated that a UNHCR’s press release on the 2025 Nansen Refugee Award had been shared under embargo, including the names of one global winner and four regional winners. On 16 December, at 7:30 pm, the award ceremony would take place in Geneva. The event would be open to all accredited journalists, but they would need to inform the UNHCR media team in advance.
Nicolas Brass, Chief of the Global Compact on Refugees Section at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that the Global Refugee Forum Progress Review 2025 would take place from 15-17 December 2025, at the International Conference Centre (CICG) in Geneva, following on from the Global Refugee Forum 2023. These forums were the main tool to implement and advance the Global Compact. The three-day meeting would welcome a wide range of stakeholders, representing the entire ecosystem of the Global Compact; at least 200 refugees, IDPs and stateless persons were expected to join. There would also be a series of side events, said Mr. Brass. He spoke of the climate of decreasing humanitarian assistance, with the data for the year ahead not more encouraging. Beyond financial constraints, there was also insufficient political will to respond to the refugee challenge. Many refugees were being scapegoated, and hate speech, misinformation and disinformation would also be on the agenda at the event. The main objective was to take stock of the progress made since 2019, and particularly since the 2023 Forum, and how the commitments were being implemented. Many actors, including refugees themselves, were hopeful that this meeting would truly count. Mr. Saltmarsh added that Australian actress and producer Cate Blanchett, UNHCR’s Goodwill Ambassador, would attend the Forum.
Mr. Brass further said that data collected since 2016 showed that when there was a will, there was a way. Collective efforts from specific sectors allowed refugees access to jobs, but also third-country solutions, such as resettlements and family reunifications. All the gains reached over the past decade were at the significant risk of being lost, he warned. The event the following week would be an opportunity to reaffirm the collective commitment to refugees and their host countries, but this would not be the end of the journey. Every action, every commitment made a difference.
More details are available here.
Answering questions, Mr. Brass confirmed that the outgoing High Commissioner Filippo Grandi would deliver opening remarks on 15 December at 10 am, as well as closing remarks on 17 December. Mr. Saltmarsh said that the High Commissioner would brief the media at the CICG around 2:30 pm on 17 December, which would be his last media meeting in his role as the High Commissioner. Over 25 side events and strategic dialogues would take place, including on Syria and Sudan. The private sector would take active part in the meeting, including at a session on employment.
Announcements
Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service, reminded that on 10 December, the Human Rights Day, at 10:30 am, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk would hold his end-of-year press conference.
On 10 December at 3:30 pm in Room VIII, UN Women, the Council of Europe, and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Moldova would organize a closing event of the UNITE to End Violence against Women and Girls campaign with an event “Reclaiming Digital Spaces: Women’s Activism for Peace and Gender Equality”. Registration was possible here; a valid UN badge would be required.
Ms. Vellucci informed that the Committee on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families would close its 41st session on 11 December and issue its concluding observations on the three reports reviewed during this session: Mauritania, Indonesia, and Honduras.
Finally, at 6:45 pm today, in Cinerama Empire in Geneva, there would be the last Ciné-ONU event of the year, with the screening of the documentary “Igualada” about Colombian Vice-President Francia Márquez, once dismissed as an outsider who dared to reach too high - as she transformed an insult into a rallying cry for justice, dignity, and representation. The screening would be followed by a panel discussion.
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Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 9th of December.
And I'd like to start immediately with Ricardo Perez and our guests that you know well, Tess, Tess Ingram, who is coming to us from Gaza.
Tess, nice to see you again.
Thank you very much for for coming to toll to tell us about the toll on Montana malnutrition and stress on newborn children at the moment in Gaza.
I understand also that you're completing your assignment.
And so we're particularly happy to have you here with us.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thanks for having me today.
As you all well know, at least 165 children are reported to have died painful, preventable deaths related to malnutrition during the war in the Gaza Strip.
But far less reported has been the scale of malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women and the devastating domino effect that that has had on thousands of newborns.
The pattern is clear.
Malnourished mothers giving birth to underweight or premature babies who die in Gaza's neonatal intensive care units or survive only to face malnutrition themselves or potential lifelong medical complications.
Let me first track back to 2022 in Gaza, before the horrors of the last two years, when an average of 250 babies per month, or about 5% were born with what doctors call low birth weight or weighing less than 2 1/2 kilogrammes at birth.
This is according to the Ministry of Health.
In the first half of 2025, even with fewer births, more babies were born underweight, 10% of all births, or about 300 babies per month.
And then in the three months before the ceasefire, July to September this year, this surged to an average of 460 babies every month, or 15 a day, which is almost double the pre war average.
In Gaza's hospitals, I have met several newborns who weighed less than one kilogramme, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive.
Low birth weight infants like these babies are about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight.
They need special care, which many of the hospitals in Gaza have struggled to provide due to the destruction of the health system, the death and displacement of staff, and impediments by Israeli authorities that prevented some essential medical suppliers from entering the Strip.
The data shows that the number of babies who died on their first day of life in Gaza increased from 70, increased 75%.
Sorry, from an average of 27 babies per month in 2022 to 47 babies per month between July and September 2025.
Not all of that can be traced back to preterm or low birth weight, but alongside congenital abnormalities, doctors tell me it is a common story.
Low birth weight is generally caused by poor maternal nutrition, increased maternal stress and limited antenatal care.
In Gaza, we witness all three and the response to them is not moving fast enough, nor at the scale required.
Between July and September, about 38% of the pregnant women that we screened with our partners were diagnosed with acute malnutrition, 38% and even now we continue treating them in high numbers.
In October alone, we admitted 8300 pregnant and breastfeeding women for treatment for acute malnutrition.
That's about 270 women per day in a place where there was no discernible malnutrition among this group before October 2023.
This pattern is a grave warning, and it will likely result in low birth weight babies being born in the Gaza Strip for months to come.
This is not over two weeks ago I met Fatima as she was visiting her baby Mohammed in a Gaza City neonatal intensive care unit.
Mohammed was born premature and weighing about 1 1/2 kilogrammes.
Fatima told me that unlike her first pregnancy when she had access to check UPS, vitamins and nutritious foods I quote, this pregnancy has been full of displacement, lack of food, malnutrition, war and fear.
She said she was malnourished for three months of the pregnancy, displaced 3 times, and her young daughter and husband were killed two months apart by airstrikes.
I have spent many months in Gaza over the past two years, and I see and hear the generational impacts of the conflict on mothers and infants almost every day, in hospitals, in nutrition clinics, in family tents.
It is less visible than the blood and injury, but it is ubiquitous.
It is everywhere.
I have lost count of the number of parents like Fatma who have sobbed while telling me what happened to them, wrecked by how powerless they are to protect their children in the face of indiscriminate destruction and deprivation.
Generations of families, including those being born now into this ceasefire have been forever altered by what was inflicted upon them.
UNICEF is responding.
We are replacing incubators, ventilators and other life saving equipment that was destroyed.
We delivered 10 ventilators to Gaza in late September and since the ceasefire another 20 incubators, 20 ventilators, 15 patient monitors among other equipment.
Since the ceasefire, we've also provided supplements to over 45,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women to prevent malnutrition.
We've screened over 150,000 children under 5 for acute malnutrition and enrolled over 14,000 in treatment.
We're providing breastfeeding counselling for over 14,000 caregivers, as well as mental health and psychosocial support.
We're doing everything in our power to support families.
But to improve the response, more aid still needs to enter the Gaza Strip, especially aid that strengthens the health of pregnant and breastfeeding women and equips hospitals with everything that they need to save lives.
This must be supplemented by commercial goods that restock local markets with enough nutritious foods so that the prices continue to fall and the fear must end.
This ceasefire should offer families safety, not more loss.
More than 70 children have been killed in the 8 weeks since the ceasefire began, 70 children.
The ongoing attacks and the killing of children must stop immediately.
And finally, this domino effect from mother to child should have and could have been prevented.
No child should be scarred by war before they have taken their first breath.
But in Gaza, this brutal reality was caused by the conflict and exacerbated by the Israeli aid restrictions, which displeted hospitals and starved and stressed mothers.
So much suffering could have been prevented if international humanitarian law had been respected.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you, Tess.
Thank you very much for this important update.
I'll open the floor to questions now.
Christiano Richt, DPA Sorry, this is the Lisa question.
Can you please share your notes because you mentioned so many figures that it was difficult to to keep up.
Thank you Lisa references to our journalist.
The Dean of journalists was always asked for written notes from the speakers.
I love that reminder in this way.
Thank you very much.
I'm looking to Ricardo to to make sure that we will get test notes quickly.
[Other language spoken]
I'm just interested in knowing a comparison.
You mentioned the 8300 pregnant and breastfeeding women and that's since the ceasefire.
So I was just wondering how does that compare with at other stages in the war?
Is it just as bad as it was during the war?
And then secondly, a question on medevacs.
There's real talk about Rafa finally opening for medevacs.
Any sign that this is really happening?
Are you getting children's names on a list and so on?
And do you know if any children have actually died waiting since the ceasefire?
I know that hundreds have died waiting since the war began.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Give the floor to test ones for you.
But there is also Christian on the line in case you want to add something on medevac test.
[Other language spoken]
In, in terms of the number of women we've admitted for, for treatment, October is the highest number that we've recorded this year in 2025.
And I can see if we have earlier data for you, Emma, one of the reasons that it is higher is because we are able to treat pregnant and breastfeeding women because we have the suppliers now in order to do that.
So that is a number that we're admitting for treatment because we are unable able to finally admit them for treatment.
But it's also a reflection of how serious the situation has been perhaps this whole time if the numbers even now are over 8000.
But in August, for example, they were two and a half thousand.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Sorry.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Just on the Megalox here, I can just, I can say quickly that, you know, it's estimated that about four thousand children still require medical evacuation from the Gaza Strip.
And I continue to meet families in hospitals who have the form who are waiting for that medical evacuation for children, including last week a 2 1/2 year old girl called Amaima, who has a congenital heart condition that requires surgery.
[Other language spoken]
And she has gone into heart failure while she awaits that medical evacuation.
We we are, I'm sure WHO can can speak to this.
But there have been some medical evacuations since the ceasefire.
But we really need that to scale up.
And Rafa is is critical in that.
[Other language spoken]
And I see Christian is open his camera.
Christian, he wanted to add something.
Yeah, thank you very much.
And also test thank you for the for the lead on this.
Indeed, that's a medical evacuations are a complex procedure.
Let's not forget that.
So this is a long line of medical referrals of security clearance by the Israeli authorities at the very last step.
But most importantly also of receiving countries to be willing and be able to to receive children, women, men, all those need to be evacuated.
On the on the numbers now I only have the total right now in front of me.
So we have a total of more than 10 thousand, 10,620 patients evacuated since October 2023.
And that is until one December, so until a few days ago.
And out of those 5608 children, and yes, there are many more waiting children and people have died while waiting for the medical procedures, while waiting to be evacuated.
[Other language spoken]
And we're grateful, really grateful for every country which only receives a single patient would so badly need to be evacuated because there's no medical treatment available for them inside Gaza.
Thank you very much, Christian, Jeremy and then Robin.
Jeremy launch RSE Yeah, thank you.
[Other language spoken]
I apologise because I, I feel like I've, I've been asked this, this question like so many times since the war started.
But you, you you mentioned like the lack of food, technically speaking, like do do pregnant women are actually starving to death as we speak.
Children are starving to death.
And, and, and could the the opening of the Rafah border could be could it be a game changer to that point of view?
The rate of malnutrition among children and breastfeeding is remaining stubbornly high.
We admitted 9300 children under 5 for treatment for malnutrition in October and as I said, eight more than 8000 pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Those numbers are dramatically higher than the February ceasefires.
For example, the number of children admitted is five times higher than in February.
So we need to see the numbers come down further and the opening of the Rafa crossing, if that allowed the flow of humanitarian trucks as we want it to, could be important in helping us bring down those numbers of children with malnutrition.
We really need to see all types of aid come in, particularly nutritious food through commercial routes as well.
Because when I'm talking to families here in nutrition clinics, something that is continuously coming up is that mothers cannot afford to buy their children the nutritious food that's available in the markets.
Fruits and veg, which are now here, remain very expensive, and animal products like dairy and meat even more so.
For example, UNICEF market survey done in November found that meat is still on average cost about US $20 a kilo.
So most families can't access this.
And that's why we're still seeing high rates of malnutrition.
Unfortunately, the rate of malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women is slower to come down we're seeing than among children.
And that's because mothers are really sacrificing their own well-being in order to feed their children.
I met a mother in a nutrition clinic a couple of weeks ago.
[Other language spoken]
She's nine months pregnant with her third child.
Her name's Noor, and she's 24 years old.
She had severe acute malnutrition.
And we've been treating her for that.
And she has is improving, but she remains malnourished now just two weeks before giving birth to the baby.
And she was saying to me that in the, you know, darkest days of, of the famine a few months ago, she was surviving on half a piece of pita bread, giving the rest to her children.
And even now the supplies that she gets from us to treat her malnutrition, she's giving them to her children as well.
And and this is a common story here of mothers really kind of sacrificing their own nutrition to help support their children.
Robin, FP thank you.
Two months, we're now two months into the ceasefire.
What impediments are you is currently seeing in terms of getting into the Gaza Strip, the things that that you need to in to tackle this situation and if there are any impediments, do you see any signs of that situation improving?
I'll take that in reverse.
So we have still seen, we have seen an improvement, but there are still impediments.
The improvement we've measured in the volume of aid that we're collecting on the Gaza side of the crossing.
So for example, in the 10 weeks leading into the ceasefire, we were picking up on average about 1100 pallets of aid a week.
At the moment, on average, since the ceasefire, it's so in the last 8 weeks, it's been 3800 pallets a week.
So that's about a 250% increase in the volume of aid that UNICEF has been able to pick up inside Gaza.
That's positive.
But of course, we're coming off an incredibly low base and it's still nowhere near enough.
What we want to be able to do is now talking about, you know, the trucks that we're we're offloading.
We're approved by the Israeli authorities to offload between 55 and 60 trucks on the Israeli side of the Gaza crossing every day.
But at the moment we're, because of the various constraints, we're only offloading an average of about 38 trucks.
So we could increase the volume of aid we're offloading, which would mean that we're collecting more aid every day inside Gaza.
The impediments really remain as they were before.
[Other language spoken]
So the insecurity remains an issue.
Customs clearance challenges remains a big issue as to deny delays and denials of of cargo at the crossing.
And then the limited routes for transporting humanitarian supplies inside Gaza.
These are still coordinated missions in which we have to receive approval to go and collect the aid from the crossings and we're often funnelled through particular routes that are congested or or insecure.
So again, we we have seen some improvement, but we continue to call for all of the available crossings into the Gaza Strip to be open and for them to be open simultaneously.
Not, you know, for example, as we're seeing at the moment, the crossings alternating between offloading and collections of only being open every other day.
We need them all open consistently so that aid can come through and then for the processes of that aid moving through the various clearances to to be expedited if we're really serious about addressing the massive needs that we're seeing under this ceasefire.
Thank you very much, John.
Sarah Costas from Swancaterine Lansi, Yes, good morning.
Thank you for this briefing.
I was wondering if you could give us some more details on the 9300 children that were admitted in October for treatment.
Was that for severe acute malnutrition?
And how many have recovered and how many have passed away?
And secondly, with reference to the goods coming in and all the impediment, are the UNICEF supplies coming in free of import duties?
Are they subjected to import duties?
[Other language spoken]
On the question on the number of children with malnutrition, so the 9300 children admitted in October is down from a peak in August and then again from September.
But it's just it's still a shockingly high number in terms of of how many of those children were acutely malnourished, all of them.
This is this is all for children with acute malnutrition.
I don't have data to hand on how many have recovered.
Generally, our treatment is 8 weeks.
So if a child's admitted to treatment, this is for outpatient treatment.
At these numbers, they come on a weekly basis to collect the ready to use therapeutic food, which is the treatment.
And they do that over a course of six to eight weeks.
So it's safe to say that most of those children are probably still in the treatment.
In terms of how many have died, this is a number that that's kept track by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
And the last number I had was 160, five children since the beginning of October 2020.
Since October 2023 on import duties.
I would need to check that for you.
Unless Ricardo knows the answer to that.
[Other language spoken]
So he will check maybe.
Or you'll check this.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very, very much for being with us.
And it has been.
Oh, Emma, just don't let we have the last one, please, because thank you have to go to Sri Lanka.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Tessa, I just wanted to ask the child with congenital heart disease who had heart failure, what, what happened to her That was a clarification.
And then just a broader sort of more human question that you, you've been in, in Gaza for almost the entire conflict.
I I was just wondering on your, your personal reflections on, on leaving it for the last time and and what sort of place you're leaving behind.
[Other language spoken]
So on Amaima, the 2 1/2 year old girl, we we've been trying to follow up with the family.
Last we heard she was in a critical condition in a hospital here in in the middle area of Gaza, still awaiting medical evacuation on leaving Gaza.
I think the, the, the take away for me is that this is unfortunately, sadly not over.
And, and, and that's because, you know, over the last two years, I think I've seen some of the very best and and very worst of, of humanity.
And one of the things that has struck me the most MO's that there were days when people would say to me, tell the world that we're people, that we are families and that we just want to live, that this is not our war.
And it was more than once, it was many times people would beg me to use my role as a spokesperson to tell the world that they are like you, that they are families with children and that those children were being killed in their sleep or, or starved to death, but also affected in a myriad of other ways.
And, and that's why I wanted to talk about maternal and, and newborn health today, because it's a very clear example of what has been inflicted on families here and what I've seen consistently, which is the big blasts and, and the mass deaths, but also the small deep cuts that that ripple through every generation of a family, deliberately destroying life, dignity and, and possibility.
And I think the families watched in Gaza as the rules meant to protect them, as civilians in war, the bedrock of international law, were were broken and injustice was normalised.
And it compelled them to feel like they had to remind us all that they to our families.
So I I think I leave a place where people really are asking to continue to receive support, to continue to receive international recognition and accountability for what has happened.
And we are still seeing, unfortunately, the rules of war being broken.
So the world cannot switch off now.
This ceasefire has to become a real peace for the families in Gaza.
Thank you so very much, really for your work, exceptional work.
And thanks for being the voice of all these children and families.
You've been fantastic also with our Geneva press score.
So thanks again for being here constantly and reporting on that.
And I look at Ricardo because I'm sure he will make sure that you get the notes very, very quickly.
[Other language spoken]
So let's go to our next speaker who has been patiently waiting from Colombo.
Sara has brought us Azusa Kubota, the resident representative of UNDP.
Sara, you want to start?
Yeah, just a few words just to say that Azusa is going to present the result of a rapid damage assessment that UNDP has prepared on the floods.
I send you the press release and the link to the report and the result yesterday.
So make sure that you check your spam if you don't see it.
[Other language spoken]
So I'll give the floor to Azusa for introductory remarks.
Good morning and thank you for joining us today.
[Other language spoken]
I hope can hear you well and we can see you well.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I want to begin by expressing our solidarity with all the communities affected by the recent floods and landslides following Cyclone Detroit.
The disaster is a stark reminder of the growing climate risks that the country faces, and there's an urgent need for us to strengthen resilience.
As already mentioned, the United Nations Development Programme in collaboration with the government, just launched a rapid assessment to better understand the scale and the urgency of these crises.
An estimated 2.3 million people were living in areas flooded by Cyclone Dittois that struck Sri Lanka.
638 people have lost their lives and 191 people still missing as of this morning.
And the last, the biggest floods that we experienced in a country in 2016 had the death toll of 93.
So you can see the scale of this disaster.
The analysis shows flood waters from the cyclone inundated more than 1.1 million hectares, which is 1/5 or 20% of the country's land area and caused significant damage to homes, infrastructure and essential services.
Over 1209 landslides have been registered Udu Dumara Secretariat in Candy district which is in the the middle part of the country highland, by far the most landslide at 135.
Other secretariats like Lagara, Kotumare East and Lugnara and Pastara all registered over 60 landslides each.
And as we all know, landslides can isolate at risk communities and disrupt us access to essential services and relief efforts.
And if the rain persists and continues to come, these communities continue to be exposed to high risk.
So we've got to make sure access to these communities as soon as possible.
And more than half of the people, I would say 54% of the people in the flooded areas are already living in households facing multiple vulnerabilities before the cyclone.
You must know that the country has gone through the country's worst economic crisis in 2022 and these communities are still recovering from multiple challenges such as unstable income, high levels of debt and limited ability to cope with climate induced disasters.
So the scale is staggering.
One in every 12 Billings in Sri Lanka was touched by flat waters.
In more than 16,000 kilometres of roads are exposed enough to circle around this island nation 12 times, disrupting transport, market access and recovery operations.
Over 278 kilometres of railways exposed to cyclone related flooding and as of this morning I understand 70% of them are not operational.
This also includes 35 railroad bridges nationwide.
So another crisis within the crisis on hold.
Over 60% of all exposed people are concentrated in the capital city of Colombo, Capital District of Colombo and Gang Baha districts, placing immense pressure on essential services and local systems.
And it is also estimated that Cyclone Ditwa has exposed over 530,000 hectares of rice paddies to floating across Sri Lanka and we are just about to going to harvesting season.
Given that 30% of the population works directly in the agriculture sector and 80% of work directly in this indirectly in the sector, you can understand this has direct impact on the livelihoods of many.
So the findings are sobering and what this means is clear.
Many of the hardest hit areas are already among the most vulnerable.
Nationwide climate shocks are outpacing our current capacity to adapt.
And without decisive action right now, these hazards would deepen vulnerabilities and reverse hard on development gains over the years.
So UNDP is committed to supporting both immediate relief and long term sustainable recovery.
Priorities are to restore basic services, strengthen local capabilities and direct resources to the areas with the most urgent needs.
And our goal is not just to recover.
We want to make sure we build the resilience why we do that so the communities can withstand further stocks and thrive.
I was visiting some of the affected communities in the Colombo district, and these families live in the most vulnerable climate zones, disaster prone zones, and they keep going back to those very precarious locations.
So we've got to think about relocation, bring them to a safe habitat, and also build their resilience so that they will not be exposed to these crime and shocks in the future.
So this is a pivotal moment for the country and for the government.
And the choices we make now will determine whether Sri Lanka moves towards resilience or faces recurring setbacks.
So thank you so much for listening back to you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you really very much for this update.
[Other language spoken]
Is there any question for ENDP on Sri Lanka?
I don't see any hand up in the room or on the platform.
I don't see any hand up.
So thank you very, very much for this update.
[Other language spoken]
As Sarah said, you have the material.
So if you don't have it, let her know.
But but it's very important that we continue speaking about what is the situation in Sri Lanka.
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Let us go to another crisis and also on the situation on maternal health and women and girls situation, this time with Fabrizio Fortuna Penela, I don't know if you want to come to the podium.
Fabrite Falcion is the UNFPA representative in Sudan and she's reaching out from Port Sudan to tell us about the situation in northern state and Khartoum.
Fabrite, you have the floor.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much and good morning.
And indeed, I'm speaking to you from Port Sudan, where I just returned after a visit to the northern state, including Alafa, the displacement camp which is near Al Daba, where thousands of people, mostly women and children, have fled after escaping the brutal violence in Al Faisal, N Darfur.
And if this were had a face, so this would definitely be the face of a woman.
These women and girls have survived 540 days under siege in Alfasa.
I met in my visit with a group of pregnant women.
A few had just delivered their babies.
Not one woman I met with at a single antenatal care consultation before that day.
They told me that they preferred not to go to the hospital rather than risking their lives.
And those are their babies.
While trying to reach it, they also told me that they had to sell everything that they owned to afford the tree pump.
Many were robbed of all their possessions and one woman told me I had to sell my land to escape.
I lost my husband and now I have nothing left.
And the great majority of the pregnant women I met with, they in fact had lost their husbands.
They were either killed or disappeared and these women are now the breadwinners for their families, but they have nothing left and don't have an income now after these dangerous journeys, they arrived in Al Afaid camp where even the basics are very limited.
And when I asked these pregnant women what they needed the most, they all said toilets.
Now, in my 19 years in the UN as a humanitarian, I have never heard women and pregnant women saying toilets has the first need.
No toilets anywhere near their tents, no lights in the camp at night.
And these are pregnant women who have remained without men in their households.
So you can imagine that the protection risks are huge.
Bread was actually the second thing that they mentioned, which was then followed by a way to earn a living.
Now some of these pregnant women had just arrived from Darfur and they were waiting outside the camp to receive a tent.
I also met a 17 year old girl and she was holding a 40 day old baby which was born out of rape.
Now this is an extraordinary act of strength of any woman, let alone an adolescent girl.
She had arrived at the camp a few days before and she had never before received any antenatal care before giving birth.
UNFPN also supports safe spaces for women and girls in Al Afar as well as across Sudan.
Several of the displaced women I met, they were doctors, they were nurses, midwives, teachers and today they are struggling to simply survive.
But some of them are also being able to be employed in the camp and use their skills to support other women.
Now also an 18 year old girl who had recently arrived from Tawila in Darfur, she said I should have never left Al Fasher and I hope that her words are a message to the international community because we can and we must do better.
In terms of UNFPA response.
UNFPA is providing maternal and obstetric care for women as well as case management and psychosocial services for survivors of gender based violence in Alafat camp in Tarila and across Sudan through the reproductive health services and in the same spaces where we provide counselling, life skills and referral for survivors of gender based violence.
Now these services are a lifeline, but only if they can continue.
And in 2025, UNFPA only received 42% of the humanitarian response.
This means that six pieces were shattered, supplies cut and some support to the reproductive healthcare had also to be stopped.
[Other language spoken]
We're appealing for 160 million for Sudan as UNFPA and we need full funding of this appeal to be able to respond.
This war is an assault on the rights, help and dignity of women and girls with 12.1 million people at risk of gender based violence.
So leaders must act now to prevent further atrocities.
And finally, we think that also you as the media have an important role to play.
And so please don't let the people of Sudan suffer in silence because the world must know the needs that they have.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much, Fabrizia.
[Other language spoken]
That's really a very, very dire situation in this region.
I open the floor to questions now in the room, Emma Farge, Reuters.
[Other language spoken]
I was hoping you could say a bit more about the mothers of babies of rape in Sudan since sexual violence has been so widespread and access to abortion is low, I believe in Sudan.
I'm wondering if you could say something about this community.
Do you know how many there are roughly?
And are they getting the support that they need?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
This is also a UNFPA, immediate and and direct concern.
To be honest, the mothers of the babies born out of rape.
In terms of the numbers, we do not have numbers.
But what I can tell you is that the numbers are not the action.
Numbers are not something important.
We know that there has been massive cases of rape also, any number that we would give would be under an underreporting.
[Other language spoken]
Because first of all, there is fear, fear of stigmatisation because services are not as widespread.
You know the data can only be collected through the services.
So honestly the numbers would not be important and not the issue right now.
In terms of the mothers of the babies, this is a longer term need and as UNFPA, something that we are starting to work.
As of now, these women have been raped.
In a few months they will give, some of them will give birth.
Some of them because of previous rapes, they've already given birth.
We have to think about their mental health, their such social support.
We have to think about their income.
These are all services that we can provide through the life saving services related directly to the response to gender based violence.
It is possible to give them.
We're also supporting care providers themselves to increase their capacity.
We're also putting in place a service to provide support to healthcare survivor, to healthcare providers because they themselves are traumatised.
So yes, the mothers are of the newborn babies and babies born out of rape are our concern.
And so all the services that we are providing to the survivors of violence, we are going to continue them.
And we're also increasing our mental health and psychosocial support for them as a part of the response.
Thank you very much, Fabrizia.
The questions to UNFPA Online, I don't see any.
[Other language spoken]
You want to Yeah, please go ahead.
Thank you everyone.
If there are any other questions or follow up, please don't hesitate to to get reach out to me.
And then I also just want to take the opportunity to say that next week UNFPA will have our global launch of our 2026 Humanitarian Action Overview.
And that will take place online Thursday next week, the 11th from 3:00 to 4:00.
And I'm happy together with the notes also to share a link to that so you can all tune into.
It's going to be an online launch with a UNFPA Executive Director, Jenny Ketter.
So just want to let you know about that.
Thank you very much, Pernila.
That's, that's important.
So if you can send the link to all the journalists will be very useful.
[Other language spoken]
Thanks to Fabrizia and let's stay on violence against women and girls with you and women.
My inviting to join me and I see that Sophia is online.
[Other language spoken]
So we have our colleagues of you and women today to tell us about the their report.
Of online violence against women, human rights defenders, activists and journalists on International Human Rights Day, which as you know, is going to be tomorrow.
[Other language spoken]
I will be starting.
Good morning and thank you.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you, policy specialist.
Thank you very much.
Good morning everyone, and thank you for being here today for this briefing on online violence against women in the public sphere.
The report that we're presenting today was developed by UN Women under the EU funded Act to End Violence against Women and Girls programme.
And it's a collaboration that we've developed together with our research partners at the Nerve City, Saint George's University and the International Centre for Journalists under the leadership of Doctor Julie Pizzetti, who's here with us today.
Tomorrow, as the world wraps up the 16 days of activism against Gender based violence and looks towards International Human Rights Day, we're reminded that women's rights are human rights.
Yet today, in the era of AI, those rights, especially the right to safety, to participation and freedom of expression, are under unprecedented threat in the digital sphere.
Our new report, Tipping Point, the chilling escalation of online violence against women in the public sphere, reveals that the very women who put themselves on the line every day to defend our human rights and inform the public are some of the groups of women that are at the greatest risk of digital violence.
And this violence has reached a tipping .1 that threatens not only individual women, but also democratic participation.
Civic Space and the human rights of all women and girls.
Let me start with the headline finding of the research.
Our global survey found that 70% of women human rights defenders, women's rights activists and women journalists experienced online violence in the course of their work.
That's seven in 10 women whose job it is to tell the truth, to hold power to account and to speak up for our rights that have experienced online violence.
But perhaps the most alarming finding is that our research shows that what starts online doesn't stay online.
Around 4 in 10 respondents, that's 41% overall reported offline harm, abuse, harassment or attacks linked to online violence.
This tells us something simple but very serious.
Online violence is not virtual.
It's a very real form of violence with very real world consequences.
The third significant finding is that when we look specifically at women journalists and media workers, the picture gets even starker.
A 2020 global survey conducted by the International Centre for Journalists and published in collaboration with UNESCO found that 20% of women journalists had experienced offline attacks connected to online violence.
In our new 2025 survey that underpins this report, that figure has now risen to 42%.
In other words, the number of women journalists who experience offline harm connected to their experience of online abuse has more than doubled in just five years.
This signals that laws, policies and protection measures have failed to keep pace with the growing threats of online violence.
Finally, the report also documents the impact of new technologies, especially generative AI, on violence against women.
Almost one in four respondents reported AI assisted online violence.
Such tools are being weaponized to sexualize women, to discredit them, and to intimidate them into silence.
It's now much easier and cheaper to produce abusive content such as deep fake sexual imagery, manipulated videos and AI generated disinformation, as well as to distribute it at scale through algorithms that are designed to amplify hate and maximise profits of tech companies.
The effects of these online harms are devastating for women both individually and collectively.
Victim survivors of digital violence experience trauma, depression, anxiety, self harm, suicide and we see that there are also growing links to femicide and gender related killings.
Online violence limits women's public participation and leadership as women's voices are silenced, censored and discredited.
We see that many women withdraw from the public sphere or step back from their activism and in some cases leave their professions altogether.
And there are also intergenerational impacts, as young women and girls may be deterred from entering professions such as journalism and politics.
So when this happens at scale, it's not just a women's rights issue.
It becomes a democratic crisis if women's voices are pushed out of our public debates.
Our societies are less informed, less representative, and as a result, they're less free.
So what needs to change?
First, we need to end impunity.
Currently, fewer than 40% of countries have laws that address digital violence.
This means that nearly 2 billion women and girls have no legal protection from online harassment or cyber stalking.
So we need to see stronger laws and policies that recognise digital violence as real violence and as a human rights violation and that provide the same protections to women online that are available offline.
And we also need to see effective implementation enforcement of these laws, including with adequate budgets.
[Other language spoken]
Second, we need to ensure that there are specific measures in place to address the heightened risks that women in public life, such as women human rights defenders, women's rights activists and women's women journalists face, and this includes robust reporting systems and survivor centred rapid response mechanisms.
And finally, we need to see greater investments in prevention and in transforming social norms.
Like all forms of violence against women and girls, digital violence is not inevitable.
It can and must be prevented through investing in education programmes, through social norm change and through engaging men and boys as allies.
Online safety can no longer be an afterthought.
It must be designed into platforms and products from the start.
The tech sector has an important role to play in ensuring safety by design and in testing digital tools and products before they're released to ensure that they don't have negative or unintended consequences for women and girls.
At UN Women, we're intensifying our work in this area.
Through the ACT to End Violence Against Women programme, we're supporting women's rights organisations to strengthen their digital resilience and their capacities to push for legal reform and accountability from tech companies.
Today, we're also pleased to announce the launch of our new corporate strategy to prevent and respond to tech facilitated violence against women, which focuses on strengthening accountability, closing data and evidence gaps, accelerating prevention and survivor centred responses, as well as building greater resilience and amplifying the voices of women's rights movements and women leaders.
Let me just end with this message.
The women whose experiences are reflected in this report are not just survivors of violence, they're essential voices in our public life.
Protecting them from violence, whether online or offline, is not optional.
It's a prerequisite for human rights, for gender equality and for healthy democracies.
Thank you very much and we look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much, Mrs Osman.
And I believe you would like to add something.
Your mic, please.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Hi, everybody.
[Other language spoken]
I am professor of journalism at City University in London.
I've been a journalist for over 30 years and I've been studying gender based online violence against women, in particular women journalists for about 15 years now.
I also lead the newly established Information Integrity Initiative, which was, which is a part of the Nerve, which is a digital forensics lab established by Maria Ressa, the Nobel laureate, who is one of the journalists that we studied it for.
The Chilling, which was the UNESCO study in 2020, which gave rise to this survey which we are launching today.
And one thing that we haven't said yet is that we need to understand this escalating crisis.
We've called the report The Tipping Point.
The previous study for UNESCO was called The Chilling because of the way it chilled freedom of expression and women's rights.
This is the tipping point where this combination of artificial intelligence, the mainstreaming of artificial intelligence technologies which are so much cheaper, so much faster, so much easier to access.
We have in combination with that challenge a rise in authoritarianism and the mainstreaming of misogyny and the network nature of misogyny.
So we see autocrats and authoritarian leaders weaponizing misogyny, particularly against women in public life, using gender based online violence against women journalists, human rights defenders and activists as a way of silencing them and attempting to push them out of public life with a specific purpose of placing them at greater risk.
Which again, to_that statistic of with the in the case of women journalists, 42% have experienced offline harm connected to online violence for the women human rights defenders and activists.
That figure, although it hasn't doubled over five years, is even higher at 44%.
So really would encourage you to dig into the study.
It's very short and to ask as many questions as as you have at this point.
Just seeing a question on the chat, has the material been sent to the journalist?
Maybe Sofia has an answer to that.
There is a question, sorry if it has been the material has been distributed, the journalist, I understand.
Yes, the report is supposed to have been distributed when the embargo lifted it at 10:30.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, on the UN website, UN Women website and also on the Nerves website.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
So let's open the floor to question the Spanish News Agency.
[Other language spoken]
I'm Alicia Garth from Spanish News Agency.
I wanted to know how do you determine or how do you measure which offline attacks are related to online violence?
And also if you could tell us if you are worried by specific countries or context.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
So the survey covers women, human rights defenders, journalists and activists in 119 countries.
I haven't mentioned that before.
So I think that's worth noting.
It's, it's a purpose of survey, meaning that we distributed it through trusted networks to avoid it being weaponized.
So within UN Women, UNESCO, the International Centre for Journalists and so on.
When it comes to the specific question about the trajectory of online violence to offline harm, we gave participants the, the opportunity to identify a range of different examples and we also provided them with a description of what that that could include.
It goes to stalking, for example, physical assault, sexual assault.
We also had respondents indicating swatting, which is a really egregious form of online violence where a mob after a mob surge in attacks against a woman target, a false report is made to a police service, rapid response police service.
It comes from the term used in the US to SWAT to send the SWAT team and you know, the police turn up at the door of the woman being targeted responding to a false report of a violent crime, placing the woman at significant risk as a result of the police intervention.
So it's a whole range of of offline activities.
But what our research previously has shown is that online violence also creates the enabling environment for lawfare.
So in the case of people like Maria Ressa, she was targeted in a long running campaign designed to discredit her as a journalist and to falsely paint her as a criminal.
And that laid the scene for her persecution, prosecution and ultimate conviction on a bogus charge of cyber libel.
So we were able to trace in that historic case, the use of a hashtag, bring her to the Senate and the use of criminal in association with those hashtags to the campaign to see that she was painted as a criminal.
And so we see the use of disinformation tactics very effectively.
And one case that I think we should mention, which is very important, in which although we haven't published it yet, is the subject of a big data case study that my team and I have produced.
And that's on Daphne Caruana Galizia, who is the the murdered investigative journalist from Malta.
And the public inquiry found in her case that the years of online violence directed at her, even though she was not herself on social media platforms, she was targeted, she was threatened, she was subjected to dehumanising abuse and so on.
And the public inquiry found a connection between this campaign of online violence and ultimately her assassination.
So this is a really dangerous and potentially deadly trajectory that we're looking at here and and we must take it very seriously.
Your other question about which countries, sorry, just to answer that, specific countries that yes.
So at the moment what we've done is to analyse the the data at the global level.
We have not yet had an opportunity to break it down into country level data.
We will be looking at the regional level first across the regions and we have three other reports to come.
So this will be released iteratively.
OK, very important, Robin, AFP, thank you the the people who are doing this, the people who are perpetrating this online violence and abuse and and harassment to silence people.
But what is the have you identified?
What is the ultimate goal behind them seeking to do that?
And secondly, I I assume that we're talking here mostly about, about men being behind this, but are there cases of, of women doing this as well?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
It's been automatically turned off.
[Other language spoken]
I mean, there are a range of different perpetrators.
We see presidents and prime ministers perpetrating this.
I mean, this is the case, well documented case of the the former president of Brazil, Bolsonaro, who targeted the journalist Patricia Campos Melo very viciously with highly sexualized online violence.
His son did as well.
She sued him successfully, ultimately won her case for that conduct.
The point is though, that in those cases, it's about trying to chill in the case of journalists and human rights defenders in particular, chill the accountability work that they're doing to silence them, to suppress the criticism.
And, and we see examples of of international leaders across the board.
The Philippines is another example where Duterte used this strategy very effectively against Maria Ressa, who I mentioned.
But we also see circumstances in the United States now where the president is, is referring to women journalists in his presence as piggy, you know, and, and telling them to be quiet and calling them stupid.
And this is part of what I refer to as a continuum of violence against women or the enabling of violence against women in public life.
So when a president or a Prime Minister or some senior official makes such egregious comments, it tends to stir up the mob online.
It's it's not even a dog whistle, which is a kind of subtle way of triggering a mob reaction.
It's an overt attack.
And then you have very specific examples of networked misogyny.
So where you have, you know, the incel movement, influencers like Andrew Tate and others who are practising digital misogyny as a way of furthering their campaign to limit women's rights.
So it's part of a global campaign to rollback rights.
And this rollback of gender rights is associated with authoritarianism.
And so we see that there are definitely kind of political objectives here.
But for some, targeting women in public life is simply about, you know, egregious expressions of sexism, which a desire to shut women up, you know, so, so the depending on the perpetrator, the motives are distinct.
Again, what this specific study shows is that the connection between physical realm harms and the dramatic increase in the rate of those risks, particularly for women journalists, but the very stark exposure of women in public life broadly to that specific risk.
And I just want to finalise by saying that this points to the really urgent need to reinforce effective regulatory mechanisms, notwithstanding pressures to defend, you know, billionaire tech barons from any kind of accountability.
We urgently need the rights and protections that under international law exist to preserve the rights of women, journalists, human rights defenders and others acting in the public interest to be enforced online as well as offline, which is a position that the UN Secretary General himself has taken.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you so much, Alessandra.
Just to add also that I think in addition to what Julie just said, we know relatively little about perpetration.
We're exploring one of the questions in the survey does ask about perpetration, but UN Women separately is also undertaking some research to better understand men's pathways into perpetration of online and offline violence, to better understand how the manosphere and these online misogynistic networks are now infiltrating and permeating mainstream social media platforms and drawing in young men and boys.
So this is another piece of research that we're undertaking because we do recognise that this is a key gap in terms of finding the prevention pathways.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
I don't see other.
[Other language spoken]
Associated Press Online.
Thank you very much for that.
I just wanted to follow up on what you just said, Miss Osman, about, you know, the sort of the research that's being done.
What can you tell us now that has been turned up that has been effective in combating these?
I mean, are there tools?
Because at the end of the day, I mean, Miss Paceti of course mentioned, you know, strengthening the sort of the legal frameworks and the regulatory frameworks.
But I mean, what else can be done?
What are some concrete things that the governments and and others and politicians can can?
Do to help crack down on on these problems.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for that question.
I think that's a really important point because whilst it's true that laws and regulation is really important, I think there's a lot of education programmes, social norm change programmes and looking at how we can engage men and boys as allies, as bystanders.
And there are some really promising practises in terms of, you know, engaging with men and boys through safer and more healthy online platforms and working through different influences that perhaps can can, can present sort of counter narratives to what the predominant sort of manosphere and incel narratives are.
So there are some promising practises.
And we do believe that there needs to be a lot more investment in engaging with men and boys as allies and in creating self safe and healthy education programmes and and initiatives to to provide sort of counter narratives around these dominant discourse on on on backlash on gender equality.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And I think the other important point to note in terms of foreign policy, for example, or domestic policy is that this could be understood, you know, as as a form of extremism.
So we need to think of radicalisation among sort of radical misogynists as a security threat.
So it's certainly a threat to women's participation in in public life and to gender equality.
But it's also as research is increasingly indicating one of the pathway, one of the pathways to extremism.
So men are radicalised along the lines of misogyny, which is why Lily's mentioned you and women is, is doing this really important work trying to understand what those pathways look like and so on.
But if we think about, you know, networked misogyny as as as a threat that is a form of domestic terrorism, if you like, and in the same way we think of domestic violence, then perhaps that helps change the strategy around those issues.
And I just want to draw attention to my colleague, Professor Leah Helmiller from City University, who's one of the co-authors of this report.
And she and I are also working on something which is responsive.
The question around what else can be done, which is a, a system called the Online violence early Warning system, which is our attempt to use AI technologies to monitor and detect and then ultimately help prevent the escalation of online violence to offline harm through a series of alerts that are issued, according to our research, informed indicators for this kind of escalation.
So this is a real time monitoring system which we continue to work on, which has been supported by the UK government.
So there's lots of creative work going around trying to develop technologies and develop systems, human rights by design systems that try to counter the systems that are facilitating this violence, which are systems built by the blokes referred to as members of the broligarchy.
So the, you know, incredibly wealthy men who control largely US based big tech companies and obviously the work that needs to be done in terms of supporting groups that do work with men, particularly young men, as we see this sort of divergent in in attitudes toward towards women's rights along age lines.
But we have to be conscious of the need to continue along the regulatory and legislative pathway because we cannot simply outsource the solutions to those who are the primary targets and those who are allies of the primary targets.
Jimmy, you have a follow up, then I'll go to John and then we go to you.
Yeah, Miss Austin, thank you so much.
And and both of to both of you.
You just mentioned that there were some counter narratives that out were out there that seemed promising.
I was just wondering if you could just sort of give us some, a few examples of that.
And, you know, if, if you can think I, I, I, I know that there's not one-size-fits-all, but it'd be great to kind of amplify, you know, who, which, which kind of platforms are working or which, which kind of voices are working and for Miss Pozetti.
And just on that, I mean, obviously you may hear my accent of United States.
I mean, the, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the sort of the vibe in the United States in the last few years has been about more free speech about unfettered speech about and, and, and the regulatory aspect has been, let's say, you know, brushed aside in a lot of the cases.
So is there is there and maybe your, your, your colleague from City University could say something about that being able.
Where is the promise?
Where, where's the hope on the US side?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
So to respond to the question about promising practises, we've seen initiatives, for example, through the Men Engage Network, where they're working with partner organisations such as Tales of Turning, where they develop content that the members of their network are posting in different online platforms with the view of engaging men and boys through positive narratives and positive messages around gender equality and women's rights.
There's also other initiatives that have been developed by our partners such as Equimondo, again, really working with their own networks of, of member organisations that put out into the social media platforms different sort of more engaging messages to, to try and divert men and, and boys away from the manosphere, But rather to engage in, in conversations about women's rights, about ending violence against women, about their role as male allies.
And also UN Women has the He for She initiative, which is also an initiative that tries to promote male allyship.
And whilst it's not specifically focused on online communities, it's also a model that could be replicated in online spaces.
And I think there's just so much that has happened offline that we can use the power of social media and online and digital platforms, as Julie was saying, to use tech for good and use the power of AI and, and, and digital tools to amplify some of the promising and good practises in offline spaces that can be used in online spaces.
Thank you, Leah, feel free to.
[Other language spoken]
So, yeah, I mean, just to add to what ILI has said, one of the struggles we have is that, you know, 10-15 years ago we talked about social media for social good and and the power of kind of network democracy.
Now we are in a situation where algorithmically extreme narratives, sexist, misogynistic narratives, other forms of hate speech are being prioritised algorithmically.
So it's very hard to use these tools for good.
So just to that really valid question about the inverted narratives around freedom of expression in the US, and I've written extensively about this before for the study The Chilling for UNESCO and elsewhere.
It is a disingenuous misinterpretation of international freedom of expression rights.
There is no right to commit hate speech under international law.
This is a freedom of expression issue, but freedom of expression has been weaponized as a tool to suppress the voices of women, human rights defenders, journalists, activists, and not just women, but of course all of those who seek to uphold human rights in digital spaces.
It is a false dichotomy.
The international standards must be applied and we see an escalation in this false argument that somehow the 1st Amendment supports unfettered speech.
There are limitations under international law for freedom of expression and the freedom of expression rights.
If we just take women journalists, for example, include their right to practise journalism safely and freely everywhere, and that includes online, and that's been reaffirmed by the United Nations.
And we cannot continue to enable the profiteering oriented arguments of big tech companies that allege that any attempt to hold them accountable for what occurs on their sites is an attack on freedom of expression.
Actually, it's about attempting to enforce human rights online as they are practised offline, those standards and those rights.
And we see just this week an increase in the rhetoric that suggests that here in Europe, for example, US foreign policy should go so far as to dissuade efforts to continue to regulate big tech companies.
So this is an information war.
I mean, I really think information integrity is the biggest battle that we face currently and this issue of gender based online violence is at the core, at the crux of that struggle.
[Other language spoken]
And that makes me remind you that in June 2024, the United Nations published, in fact it was endorsed by your member states regarding principle and information technology integrity.
That gives exactly the keys to to reverse that situation.
I'll take a last question and then we will go to UNHC.
Our colleagues, we've been waiting patiently.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for that.
I was wondering first if you could send us the report.
[Other language spoken]
I know you've got a launch event.
You have not received it, John, because I understand it was sent.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I only got the invitation for tomorrow's event, but thank you for that.
I was wondering if you can give us some examples of smearing and even assassinations of women journalists by foreign governments for foreign policy or national security or national where these journalists have perceived the national security threat by these governments and they were either liquidated or or smeared with big funds behind these smearing campaigns.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And I'm, I mean, I'm reaching back here to the research that we produced for UNESCO over three years under the banner of the chilling and other work that we've done, which is kind of reinforced through this new study for UN women.
So we included examples such as women journalists working for the BBC Persian service being targeted by the Iranian authorities extraterritorially.
So this is one of the interesting and terrifying aspects of gender based online violence that it is exposes the target to increased physical risk and it's extraterritorial, so it stretches across borders.
And we know that, you know, there have been assassination attempts, physical assassination attempts against Iran, exiled Iranian journalists, for example, with a couple of examples from that group of women journalists working for the BBC, who for the Persian service included online violence, followed by deep fakes and even cheap fakes and printed out versions of these cheap fakes sent to the school of one of the women's sons.
So the ways in which, you know, this, this stuff moves from online to offline and back again.
We have also seen in the case of Ukrainian women journalists, we've studied the use of these sorts of tactics by, you know, Kremlin aligned actors.
And then there is the case of Krada US, who is a senior reporter and presenter with Al Jazeera Arabic.
She's Lebanese, she's based in Qatar, and we produced a big data case study on her which which the headline of which indicated that she was at the epicentre of a geopolitical storm online and she was targeted, she alleges, and had started legal proceedings to this effect by Saudi officials and by officials from a number of other Middle Eastern states.
So it's part of this trend towards transnational repression that we're seeing targeting human rights defenders and journalists.
And this, you know, this the the online violence, gender based online violence is, is one of the essential tools in that toolkit deployed by the perpetrators.
And, and that includes these foreign state actor LED attacks, but also we see it, as I mentioned, domestically within states that are tilting towards authoritarianism.
Thank you so very much.
[Other language spoken]
Sorry, no, but this would have deserved the a separate press conference.
I think there will be really interesting.
But anyway, thank you so much.
I just wanted to sort of clarify that some of the examples Julia is sharing, she's an independent researcher.
So they're not necessarily from the report that we're presenting today.
We will be doing an analysis of perpetration to understand who the different actors are.
And in one of the future reports, as Julie mentioned, there's three reports that are coming out as part of this series until we get to the final report.
So there will be more information on the specific tactics and perpetrators, but some of the examples Julie has shared today are not necessarily from the UN women research that we're presenting today.
[Other language spoken]
And I should add that I will share with you, if you like, for the press office, some of the published examples from the UNESCO work and from the work we've done with ICFJ, which can provide the data that you need to demonstrate the examples that you were seeking.
But again, the report we're releasing today is the specific UN Women report.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
And I see that Sophia has answered the journalist in the chat that the report will be sent to everyone very, very quickly.
So thanks to both our speakers and for this very informative briefing.
And I'll ask our colleagues from UHCR to come to the podium.
[Other language spoken]
Matt, are you coming too?
So thank you very much for being with us today.
Matt has brought us Nicola Bojas, who's the UNHCR Chief of the Global Compatible Refugees section.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I'll head it over to Nico in a moment, just before he takes the microphone to let you know that we have shared on embargo with you this morning our annual press release on the 2025 Nansen Refugee Award.
So you should have that in your inboxes.
That includes biographies of the laureates.
There's one overall winner as well as 4 regional winners this year and it also includes multimedia assets.
The Refugee The Nanson Refugee Award was established in 1954 and it is presented every year to an individual, group or organisation that is taking extraordinary action to protect or assist forcibly displaced or stateless people.
There will be next week an award ceremony that goes with the Nanson Award that will take place on the 16th of December at 7:30 PM here in Geneva.
It'll be hosted by Leanne Manus, who's an award-winning senior news anchor from South Africa.
And UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Kate Blanchett will be delivering remarks at that event as well.
That's on Monday.
That is on the 16th of December, Tuesday.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And there'll also be performances by Ahmed Judy, a stateless refugee who was raised in Syria, a dancer and choreographer to Say, a musician and singer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Maria Sur, a 20 year old refugee, singer and performer from Ukraine.
The event will be open to all journalists who are registered at the Pele de Nacion in Geneva.
But do please get in touch with us if you would like to attend so that we can help facilitate that.
Over to you, Nicola.
Thank you very much.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you so much, Alessandra and Matt and thank you for your patience.
I will brief on the Global Refugee from Progress review, which will be taking place next week in Geneva from the 15th to the 17th of December.
This is a midway point between two global refugee forums which take place every four years.
The last one took place in Geneva in 2023.
These forums are the main tools to implement and advance the Global Compact on Refugees, which is all about responsibility, sharing and international solidarity to support countries hosting refugees and working towards lasting solutions to refugee situations.
The meeting will be taking place over three days.
We will be, we're looking forward to welcoming a wide range of stakeholders which really represent the entire ecosystem, so to speak, of the Global Compact on Refugees.
These of course include member UN member states, UN entities, senior society actors, but also private sector, academia, faith leaders and first and foremost refugees themselves.
And this is very much a meaning that is with them, about them, not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do.
And we are hoping to have at least some 200 people we've lived experience of forced displacement and statelessness joining us in this event.
And with the support of Switzerland and the and the United Kingdom, we will be able UNHCR to sponsor the participation of some 130 of of those individuals.
The meeting also will involve a series of side events and strategic dialogues.
So we are hoping to be able to cover the main issues that are at stake today.
I'm sure I, I will not break any news in, in explaining the main challenges that I've faced today in terms of addressing forced displacement, starting by shrinking humanitarian assistance and overall official development assistance.
The latest data that we've received from the OECD is quite bleak and the outlook, the projections for 2425 in terms of official data are not encouraging.
All this information will be, is available in the Global Compact on Refugees Indicator report, which I believe has been made available to you, to you all.
But beyond financial constraints, what we're also experiencing, and I think the previous speakers spoke very eloquently about some of the challenges, it's around the the political will to really respond to refugee situations.
[Other language spoken]
And it's very important that we use this opportunity next week to really reaffirm our collective commitment to respond to support, protection of refugees and working towards solutions.
Many refugees are being scapegoated.
We see also an increasing, increasing instances of hate speech, misinformation and disinformation.
And that will be one of the topics that will also be discussed during the event next week.
The objective of the meeting is not to repeat another global refugee forum.
It will be smaller in scale, yet we are looking, we are expecting over 2000 participants composed of different delegations.
As I just explained, the main objective is about taking stock of commitments made since 2019, the first global refugee forum, but most particularly since 2023, the last forum and see how actors ourselves all together have been progressing in terms of implementing those commitments.
But it's more than simply taking stock, it will be an opportunity to correct course, identify areas that require further investment and pave the way towards the next global refugee from in 2027.
Considering the context and the challenges, we know that many players, many actors, many civil society actors, refugees themselves are looking to us to make this meeting count.
And we are determined to make this meeting count.
Indeed, maybe just a few words in terms of what we'll be speaking about and what also is will will be made available to you in terms of findings of the stock taking process.
We've been able to gather data since 2016 roughly.
And what we are seeing is where there's a when there's a will, there's a way and international solidarity, collective action do yield dividends.
We have seen good progress in terms of support towards host countries, in particular low income and middle income countries.
We have seen also the results of collective efforts when it comes to specific sectors, such as including refugees in national systems, allowing them access to jobs and labour markets, but also increasing efforts when it comes to 3rd country solutions, not just through resettlement but also for complementary pathways such as family reunification.
When it comes to returns to home countries, which is also one of the key objective of the Global Compact on Refugees, we have seen also improved engagement, especially when it comes to addressing some of the root causes, such as addressing issues linked to house, land and properties.
However, this is an area that requires a lot of and more sustained efforts, in particular when it comes to peace building.
Now this sounds positive.
Unfortunately, the picture is not as rosy as that and all the gains that have been reached over the past decade are at significant, significant risk of being being lost.
Of course, this is this is linked to the financial situation and the bleak outlook, but also linked to the political will that we are experiencing these days.
So next week the event will be an opportunity to reaffirm our collective commitments to support refugees, to support host countries.
It is an important milestone, but it's not the end of a journey.
And let me be very clear, that even does matter because it will bring together a series of very important stakeholders.
But it's not the end of the journey and it's very important that we continue mobilising supports, including for you the media, to really advocate and advance and mobilise champions of refugee protection.
[Other language spoken]
It will be very important when we look at the pledges that have been made in 2023 and the level of implementation.
We are very encouraged with the momentum and the continued engagement.
Over 3400 pledges have been made since 2019.
The vast majority were made in 2023 and based on the on the data that we have collected and we're extremely appreciative to all stakeholders for reporting back to us.
Over 60% of those pledges have been fulfilled or are being implemented.
And when I say pledges, these are not just financial pledges, they're also policy pledges, especially some pledges made by host countries to allow refugees to access, to access labour markets, to include them in the national systems.
Those policy pledges must be matched with financial support.
And next week will be an occasion to reiterate this call and really make it make it happen to the extent possible.
Now, just to conclude, and I'll be looking forward to answering some of your, of your question because we've been, we've received some questions about the opportunity and, and of organising such an event in in this in this time.
And I can tell you, but many refugees, many civil society actors, many states are looking towards UNHCR to make this meeting count.
It's A and we'll do what we can to make it happen.
We are sorry.
It's I speak from the heart because I've been, I've been engaging with refugees themselves.
And you know, UNHCR is, is shrinking, shrinking.
We are faced with difficult financial situation.
But I have so many local actors, refugee organisations that as we speak are effectively shutting down and they're really looking, looking to us to make this meeting count.
So every commitment, every action, as small as possible is, is essential.
So the message from this GRF progress review is clear.
Collective action works if we can sustain it.
And we look forward to having you also at the event, which I understand will be open to the media.
[Other language spoken]
Indeed.
Thank you very, very much.
Let me see if there are questions in the room.
[Other language spoken]
Emma of Art Writers.
[Other language spoken]
Just for news planning, it would be great to know when the big kind of Gandhi speech will be, I guess his last.
And also whether we'll have AAQ and A with him at at some stage during the forum.
And will there also be many big side events and if there's a schedule, I'd, I'd love to see that.
And and finally, I think I know the answer to this, but let me just check, will there be any leadership announcements at all or anything on the leadership contest during the forum?
[Other language spoken]
The High Commissioner Filippo Grantee will be delivering opening remarks indeed, as well as closing remarks.
The opening remarks will the opening ceremony will take place on Monday the 15th at 10 AM.
The detailed programme is available online and we will make sure that the link is shared with you all.
And the closing ceremony will is scheduled to take place on the 17th of December at at 4:30.
There will be and I will let Matt compliment there is indeed a medium moment plan scheduled for the on the last day.
But I will let Matt provide more details as far as the next hack commissioner is concerned.
We, we are, I think all waiting eagerly to for the announcement.
I don't have more details to share at this point.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Just to add, Emma, High Commissioner Philippo Grandy will be delivering remarks to the press, will be briefing with you on the 17th at the CICG, probably around 2:30, but will finalise that time, 2:30 CET.
So do get your accreditation.
That will be his last major media meeting under his mandate.
We will be sending another advisory out to you.
The details are being finalised in some aspects.
So you'll get that soon in the next couple of days.
And then in terms of the announcement of the next High Commissioner, I think as Nico said, this is being managed, this process is being completely managed by the United Nations in New York.
So it's the office of the spokesperson and the Secretary General who is dealing with communications about that and, and they will be making an announcement in due course.
Exactly due course is the right word.
But you wanted to say something about side events.
Yes, apologies, I think I, I forgot to answer that specific question.
We have over 25 side events and strategic dialogues that are being scheduled that will be part of the official programme.
There are also additional linked events that will actually that have started even this week and that will span over over the period of two weeks.
It's I don't want to go for the list now.
You will you can go for the the programme, but it's it's a good mix of thematic issues, including on, on misinformation, hate speech, but also deep dive on specific situations.
We will have a high level event on Syria.
We will also have one on on Sudan regional crisis.
Both of them will take place on the third day on the 17th.
And we will also have one event on the one strategic dialogue on the Rohingya refugee situation.
[Other language spoken]
Are there hands up in the room?
No, I don't see any.
So John Zaracosta, Yes, good morning and thank you.
I was wondering if you could give us some details.
There will be, I understand, a session on private philanthropy.
When is that being held?
Is that open to the press?
And who will be the principal participants?
And secondly, what are the guidelines of UNHCI, if you can refresh us on receiving funds from the private sector and if you've got a firewall, what you accept and what you don't?
Thank you for the for the question.
So the private sector will be featuring throughout the event.
We have in terms of formats we'll for each event and session, we have series of panel during the the general debate and the primary session will have a specific session on access to employment for for refugees.
The private sector will be also featuring in the in the opening ceremony.
I think the quite the your question on the specific event with philanthropist.
This is one of the of the events that will take place in the the margins of the GRF progress review.
As far as I will leave it to Matt's to what extent this this event is open to the to the media.
Otherwise we can go back to you with with more details.
As far as your question in terms of UNHCRS accepting funds from the private sector, the guidelines, yes, we, we do accept funds from the private sector, but it follows indeed very strict process whereby due diligence is carried out.
We have clear operating procedures internally.
So it's not automatic.
We don't accept automatically such funds.
But this is something done internally.
And also we can I'm sure provide more details if if needed.
Matt, do you want to come say something?
Well in, in terms of media access, the event is, is open.
There may be one or two sessions that are behind closed doors.
We don't have a full rundown of the exact breakdown, but in theory, these sessions should all be open to the media.
And we do hope that you you come along to cover it.
Thanks to both.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, thank you very much for doing this.
[Other language spoken]
Do we need an additional accreditation to cover the Global Compact at the CICD?
[Other language spoken]
Yes, we do ask you to make an additional accreditation via the Indigo platform, but it should, I'm told, be quite painless and quick.
Could be famous last words for accredited journalists for the Nansen Award.
If you're already accredited to UNOG, do just send us an e-mail to let us know that you're coming and particularly if you have any audio visual requirements.
We will of course be providing B roll photos and and the usual multimedia assets to go with both the GRF review, but also of course the Nansen Awards.
Thank you very much.
I don't see other hands up.
So thanks to both and good luck for this important event.
[Other language spoken]
I have a few, few few very quick announcements since it's been a very long briefing speaking about you and women.
There will be an event on Wednesday at 3:30 reclaiming digital spaces, women's activism for peace and gender equality.
As I said, that's on the 10th of December that in addition of being human rights die, it's also the end of the 16 days of activism against gender based violence.
Orange the world.
I'm still wearing it and so this will be in room 8 of the Paladin.
Assume it's a joint event of human women, but also the Council of Europe and other and other partners.
Also on the 10th, let me remind you of the press conference of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Workers work that will be in this room at 10:30 and it's the traditional end of year press conference of the High Commissioner.
Today we are closing the 41st, sorry, today not, but on Thursday afternoon we are closing the 41st session of the Committee of the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.
And then I have two events to announce you, and I hope you'll be able to participate.
One is tonight at the 9th of December at 6:45 at the cinema, NPR Cinema in town.
The last scene you knew of the year, The movie that we will screen is called Igualada.
This is a documentary movie on the current Vice President of Colombia, her name is Francia Francia Marquez, she was called Igualada, which literally means outsider who dares to reach too high to launch a campaign that has brought her to the Vice presidency.
We will screen the movie followed by a discussion on the theme from invisibility to influence.
How to ensure that political participation of marginalised communities in contemporary democracies.
And as usual, we will be waiting for you at the Cinema Ampere.
And this is a free event.
I also wanted to remind you of another event which is taking place on the 15th of December.
That's at 5:30 until 7:00 at the the Ibe premises, the International Bureau of Education premises that's in Rue de Marion.
On the 15th of December, UNESCO International Bureau of Education will celebrate the defining moment of its 100 year history, the inscription of its historical archives into the UNESCO Memory of the World International Registers Register.
To celebrate this milestone, Ibe will host the commemorative event at its premises in Geneva that are open to you.
The evening will open with remarks from senior representatives of Ibe, UNESCO and the host country Switzerland, followed by brief reflections on the enduring value of documentary heritage.
And guests will witness the unveiling of a Memory of the World commemorative plaque, and that will be followed by a guided visit and mini exhibition.
So please look at the invitation that we have sent you.
There are all the information about the inscription and you're welcome to participate in this event.
And I think this is the last thing I wanted to tell you, except that I hope that at least at lunchtime, since this morning was not possible with the briefing, you'd be able to enjoy the beautiful bazaar in Assembly Hall.
And as I said, this is organised by the UN Women's Guild and every penny goes for projects in favour of women and girls.
So thank you very much.
And if there are no other questions for me, John has a hand up.
Sorry.
Yes, thank you, Alexandra.
I've got a question actually from Mr Galindo from IOM.
He's still there and listening in.
[Other language spoken]
In fact, he he was supposed to speak with the IOM report.
They launched their appeal yesterday, John.
Sorry, IOMI, miss.
They were supposed to speak, but in fact, they moved their briefing to the next one to Tuesday.
So I hope you'll be able to be there and ask questions directly to Mr.
Green or you.
You can write to Muhammad Ali or to Kennedy.
No, it was just about the launch of their appeal yesterday.
We had some questions on it, that's all.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
No, but I know he was supposed to talk today, but was supposed to be here today.
But in the end, they decided to come next briefing on on Tuesday.
So don't hesitate to either to contact them or to ask the questions on Tuesday.
Thank you very much.
I don't see other hands up.
So thanks everybody and I'll see you on Friday.
[Other language spoken]