At a March 16, 2016 UN Commission on the Status of Women panel on violence against women sponsored by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Senior Advisor Azza Karam said that too much focus was being given to Islamist terrorists. Instead, Karam equated the threat posed by the Islamic State to gang violence.
In her words:
"The Religious Fundamentalism... exists across the board as you well know. Unfortunately dealing with the context of today we are only dominantly talking about the discourse called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)... and guess what? 90% of the conversation is about so-called Islamic extremism. We end up talking about ISIS/ISIL, Boko Haram, we do not look at the range of violent extremism out there that should include gang violence that takes place in many parts of the world including Latin America and elsewhere. It should include right wing extremism across Europe that we are seeing more and more of, it should include non-religious and religious extremism and look at how we can fight it all simultaneously as secular and faith based entities. We keep focusing on the Islamic side and we see very little beyond it and as long as we don't look beyond it we won't be able to work together..."