10th International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict

Co-hosted by the Office of the SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Office of the SRSG for Children & Armed Conflict & the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the UN

Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and dear friends,

I greet you in peace – the fervent wish of women and girls everywhere in the world.

Calls to stop the bombs echo around the world today. Yet peace is only possible when we end the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence.

Imagine a woman in a war zone – she is traumatized, dehydrated and malnourished after being driven from her home and forced to flee her community, in constant fear of the horror of sexual violence. To get food and water for her children or to use the sanitary facilities, she wonders: how will I traverse this terrain safely?

Every single day, UNFPA helps to heal women who are haunted by unspeakable acts of sexual violence.

Women like Aisha from Sudan, who told us that since an armed militia took over her neighborhood, she only able to leave her house for essential supplies and food. At first, the soldiers did not harass or harm her. Then one day, two men in uniforms broke into her home and told her not to scream. One soldier held a gun while the other raped her. When she finally escaped to a neighbour’s house, she felt too ashamed to tell her what had happened.

Women rarely instigate wars, yet certainly suffer most from them. 

Their bodies become battlegrounds when sexual violence is deliberately used during war and conflict to terrorize communities.

Cases of conflict-related sexual violence have reached horrifying new heights, soaring 50 per cent between 2022 to 2023.

Women and girls are being assaulted and raped, forced into marriage and sexual slavery. These are wounds that last a lifetime. 

Our social workers, our midwives, our community health workers are treating post-traumatic stress, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, social stigma and isolation, physical injury and unwanted pregnancies. But the profound mental health consequences last a lifetime and this cannot be overstated.

Most cases of sexual violence are perpetrated against women. One third involve girls. Men, boys and people of diverse sexual orientation can also be victimized.

When health facilities collapse, they have nowhere to turn.

In Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, and so many other conflict zones, attacks on healthcare facilities are decimating the few support structures in place to assist survivors and to help others to heal. As Gaza’s health infrastructure lies in ruins and women and girls are crowded into shelters, there is a complete protection vacuum because of the lack of access.

In Syria, there have been 600 attacks on medical facilities documented by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights. Bombings have wiped out so many healthcare facilities that survivors have to embark on long, dangerous treks to seek medical help. 

Delayed medical attention to survivors of sexual violence only increases the risk of physical and mental health complications, prolonging their suffering.

Sexual violence in conflict is a war crime. It is a crime that silences voices pleading for peace. That silence only deepens when those who speak out go unheard and when those who perpetrate these horrific crimes go unpunished.

As a Rohingya woman told me – and it haunts me to this day: “it’s the wound that you don’t see that hurts the most.”

Together, we can break the silence and bring urgency to the task of ending this stain on our common humanity. For as long as the scourge of sexual violence persists, every survivor deserves protection, quality care, and rapid access to justice. 

UNFPA plays a leadership role in coordinating gender-based violence risk mitigation and response efforts in conflict settings. In 2023, UNFPA provided safety from gender-based violence for over 5.9 million people in 50 countries affected by crises. Over 1,800 safe spaces offered women and girls emotional and physical refuge.

The needs are staggering, and more resources are urgently needed to support our lifesaving work across the humanitarian sector. 

Today, I have three urgent pleas:

Let us close the funding gap. This is preventing us from delivering at greater scale. Less than 15 percent of the funds needed for essential prevention and protection services are available to respond to gender-based violence in crises.

Second, let us pledge that health facilities will never be a target, in keeping with international law and international humanitarian law. Even in times of conflict, women and girls must have access to health and social protection services. Survivors of sexual violence need medical and psychological support. 

Third and above all, listen to women. They are the frontline responders. They are the guardians of the family. They know what works in their own communities. They must be assured representation in peace and political processes. Their leadership should steer the decision-making.

That is how we will once and for all put an end to gender-based violence and sexual violence as a weapon of war, and conquer this issue of impunity for perpetrators. No more unthinkable horrors. 

Today, Juneteenth is celebrated in the United States, which marks the end of the era of enslavement.

I leave you with a quote from Zora Neale Hurston who said: “The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”

The future that I want us to break out of that shell is a future free of sexual violence. It is a future that is only possible when we act in the present.

So let us heed the voices of women and girls, silence the guns and not the survivors, and protect health workers in conflict zones, to hasten the peace so women and girls can heal. 

Thank you.