Accountability for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence by Terrorist Actors

Sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Malta to the United Nations

The Soufan Center, with the support of the Permanent Mission of Malta to the United Nations, undertook a project to guide UN member states and the international community toward tangible progress regarding accountability and justice for sexual and gender-based (SGBV) crimes in the context of terrorism. The project mapped practical avenues for member states and UN entities to further criminal prosecutions, sanctions, blacklisting, and other related accountability mechanisms for SGBV crimes linked to terrorism. The project fits within TSC’s broader work on enhancing justice and accountability and working toward ending the relative impunity of war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the context of terrorism.

In February 2025, TSC published an issue brief outlining the importance of integrating SGBV-specific prosecutorial guidelines and fostering international collaboration to ensure justice for survivors in Nigeria. In June 2023, ahead of the Eighth Review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, TSC co-hosted a webinar with the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the UN that highlighted relevant criminal justice and restorative justice mechanisms, and mapped the state of relevant prosecutions. In December 2022, TSC commissioned a research brief that examined the Nigerian criminal justice system’s response to SGBV in the context of relevant UNSC resolutions. In June 2021, another TSC research brief analyzed progress and obstacles related to national accountability initiatives for terrorist conduct, with a particular focus on ISIL and its reported genocidal activities against the Yazidis of Iraq.