Oslo Peace Days Children of the Enemy. Photo: Cinemic Film
Oslo Peace Days Children of the Enemy. Photo: Cinemic Film

PRIO contributed to this year's Oslo Peace Days with several events, of which PRIO GPS Organized two events.

The first event was held on 6 December and was a film screening followed by a panel discussion. Children of the Enemy tells the story of a group of children born by parents who volunteered to join ISIS, and how these children are brought home, and the difficulties this process entails.

Children whose parents belong to warring sides in a conflict situation are often hidden, stigmatized and forgotten populations. The panel discussion following the screening discussed how to understand, respond, and address the needs and rights of these children raises the fundamental question of how we understand children of the enemy. In which ways are they protected from harm and potential stigmatization due to their parentage?

Henrik Urdal participated in the panel, moderated by Inger Skjelsbæk, Professor and Director, Centre for Gender Research, University in Oslo and Research Professor, PRIO

This event was a collaboration between PRIO and the University of Oslo.

The second event was a panel discussion on the fourth iteration of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index 2023-2024. The WPS Index is a major innovation, ranking 177 countries in terms of the status of women. The latest edition of the index features new country rankings, deep-dive analysis into political violence targeting women, a spotlight on conflict trends in 2022 and sub-national data for Colombia and Ethiopia. The WPS index bridges insights from gender and development with peace and security indices.

The panel was opened by Torunn L. Tryggestad, Deputy Director of PRIO, and Director of PRIO’s Gender, Peace and Security Centre. Elena Ortiz, Research Manager for the Women, Peace and Security Index, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Lead Author of the Women, Peace and Security Index gave an introduction to the 2023-2024 Index and key findings. She was followed by Siri Aas Rustad , Research Director and Project Leader, of the WPS index at PRIO who elaborated how and why women’s status is impacted by proximity to conflict.

These introductions were followed by a panel discussion and Q&A where Elena Ortiz and Siri Aas Rustad were joined by Signe Gilen, Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Kjersti Fløgstad, Director of Nobel Peace Centre gave final remarks.

The full report can be found here and a recording of the event can be found here. More resources may be found here here:

The WPS Index is a collaborative project between the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.