Civilian Protection Through Advocacy and Local Leadership
Opening Remarks by Felicity Gray at Protection of Civilians Week side event
Strengthening Protection of Civilians through Advocacy, Humanitarian Diplomacy, and Local Leadership
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Thank you and welcome. On behalf of the organisations hosting this event, including the Canadian Mission to the United Nations who are kindly hosting us today, the Global Protection Cluster, Oxfam, Nonviolent Peaceforce, UNHCR, Childfund Alliance, and the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiations we’d like to welcome you here today. I am grateful to those of you who have chosen to be part of this conversation on strengthening the protection of civilians through advocacy, humanitarian diplomacy, and local leadership.
I want to preface our conversation today by sharing a call to action from Palestinian poet Rasha Abdulhadi: “Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can.”
Advocating for the protection of civilians is one critical means of throwing this proverbial sand to end violence, and the focus of our discussion today. Advocacy is a form of hope – a speaking into existence better potential futures for those impacted by armed conflict, an illumination of alternative pathways that do not rely on violence and harm, and an assertion of our commitment to human lives.
We are in a moment of existential crisis that risks our collective commitment to humanity. We all have a responsibility to be clear about the mass violence and harm that is being perpetrated and by whom, and to use the tools that are at our disposal to push toward justice and accountability. Indifference, silence, inaction is complicity. As Tom Fletcher reminded the UN Security Council earlier this month, we have been here before and it is not enough to reflect in some decades time and wring our hands at our lack of action.
When civilians speak about protection, they are clear that this means an end to violence, sustained through accountability for harm. “We invite you to protect us”, was the plea from Palestinian children holding their own press conference in November 2023 – now 18 month ago: "We want to live, we want peace, we want to judge the killers of children...We want to live as the other children live."
In reflecting on our responsibility to speak out and act – as member states, as INGOs, as UN agencies, as humanitarians – as human beings - let’s not hide behind oblique references to complexity, patting ourselves on the back for the bare minimum. Let us critically reflect on the roles we play in upholding harm, how we can be courageous in pushing for justice, and ask ourselves some hard questions: Whose voices matter? Who are we platforming and amplifying? Whose voices are we listening to? What is the critical mass, the chorus we need to compel action?