“We are looking forward to the day when our army will have a positive image in the outside world, when we have a holistic relationship with our civil population and when South Sudan is no longer on the list of countries that support the recruitment and use of children by armed forces.”

“I am a woman, a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. That is how I am made.”

Many a peer of Catherine Lotto, representing the Young Women Christian Association, seemed to embody that sentiment on this day at the University of Juba.

Women and girls have borne the brunt of the six-year long conflict in South Sudan. Thousands have experienced the threat or reality of abduction, rape, deprivation, displacement and death.