ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Winona Xu

Winona Xu is a Research Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she develops and instructs the university's first undergraduate seminar on international human rights and reproductive health.

POSTS BY Winona Xu

12 August 2025

Winona Xu

Reproductive Violence in Tigray

A new July 2025 investigative report highlights the devastating weaponized sexual and reproductive violence unleashed during the 2020-2022 Tigray conflict in Ethiopia. Based on hundreds of medical records and health worker testimonies, the report documents mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture of Tigrayan women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. The deliberate reproductive dimension of violence in Tigray constitutes clear violations of both the Maputo Protocol and international law, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Continue reading >>

27 February 2025

Winona Xu

A Glimpse of Hope for the Rohingya

On Thursday, 13 February 2025, a federal criminal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, took a significant step toward international criminal accountability by issuing arrests warrants for Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and 24 other Myanmar military officials. This marks the first public arrest warrants to be issued against the Myanmar military in a universal jurisdiction case. This legal development represents a rare moment of hope for the roughly one million Rohingya forced to live in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Continue reading >>