On 29 September 2025 a high-level side event entitled “Ending the Rohingya Crisis: Community-Centered Actions for Protection, Justice, and Lasting Peace” was held at the UN Headquarters in New York on the sidelines of the High-Level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar. The event was co-organized by the Women’s Peace Network (WPN) and the permanent missions of Malta, Denmark, Finland and Canada, alongside the Asia Justice Coalition, Amnesty International, Global Justice Center, Human Rights Watch, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities (PAEMA), Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Global Centre.

Speakers focused on renewed the atrocities in Rakhine State, worsening refugee conditions for the Rohingya across southeast Asia, and the urgent need for sustainable, community-led solutions. The discussion was opened by Akshaya Kumar, Director of Crisis Advocacy at Human Rights Watch, with opening remarks from H.E. Anders Adlercreutz, Minister of Education of Finland; Ambassador Natasha Meli Daudey, Permanent Representative of Malta to the UN; and Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. A video testimony from survivors, produced by the Women’s Peace Network, preceded a panel moderated by Wai Wai Nu, Founder and Executive Director of WPN. The panel featured remarks from Carolyn Nash, Amnesty International USA; Tun Khin, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK and ARNC; Noor Azizah, Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network; Lucky Karim, Refugee Women for Peace and Justice; and James Rodehaver, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Myanmar. The session concluded with closing remarks from Ambassador Sandra Jensen Landi of Denmark and Ambassador Bob Rae of Canada. The event underscored the ongoing genocide and persecution faced by the Rohingya, the lack of safe and voluntary repatriation conditions and the need for gender-responsive, justice-oriented and community-centered international engagement to achieve lasting peace.