Protection for women from sexual violence is going backwards, with nearly a third of women and girls in conflict zones from Sudan to Yemen becoming victims, Britain’s Foreign Secretary has said.
Making a speech at a women, peace and security (WPS) event in London, Yvette Cooper argued that while the world experiences its worst cycle of conflict since the Second World War, more women than ever are being subjected to violence.
“From Syria to Sudan and from Yemen to Ukraine, it is estimated that in conflict zones up to 30 per cent of women and girls have experienced sexual violence – including appalling ordeals of rape, abduction and sexual slavery,” she said at the event, which was attended by Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh.
“The reality is that as conflict has got worse, progress has stalled and even gone backwards."
Ms Cooper said the global situation “is more challenging than ever” and that, while this has devastating consequences for all civilians, “all too often the impact falls most heavily on women and girls”.
Speaking at the Foreign Office, she highlighted the two and a half years of civil war in Sudan and, in particular, violence in El Fasher, where more than 2,500 civilians have been killed and rape is “being used systematically as a weapon of war”.
Ms Cooper, who took up her post in September, spoke of meeting last week with Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, who recounted the “unimaginable experiences of women survivors he had met fleeing what he correctly termed the epicentre of global suffering”.
Figures also show that the number of women who live in or close to conflict zones has almost doubled since 2010.
Speaking at the conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of the WPS agenda, enshrined in UN Resolution 1325, she argued it was time to “bring new momentum to the commitments” in the agreement. Resolution 1325 states that women’s roles, experiences and contributions must be central to the world’s approaches to conflict.
Ms Cooper also promised that the WPS agenda would be “put at the heart of UK foreign policy”, with Britain “radically stepping up efforts to end impunity for sexual crimes in conflict”.
The UK is providing expert technical support to Ukraine for war crimes investigations and has also funded specialist sexual investigators to assist UN fact-finding missions in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar. Only last week, Britain secured international consensus at the UN Human Rights Council for an urgent UN inquiry into crimes in El Fasher.
Ms Cooper also highlighted Gaza, where pregnant and breastfeeding women “are suffering from acute malnutrition” and have no access to health services. She argued that there was “clear evidence that when you exclude women then peace is more likely to founder and violence to resume”.
Britain, she said, is also working to support “women peace-builders” in Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, and will press for their inclusion in the peace processes in Sudan and Syria. She also vowed to initiate a “no-tolerance approach to reprisals” against women who suffer violence “simply for speaking out”.
“We will step up international collaboration to address these horrific harms that should have been consigned to the history books,” she added. “Because we know there cannot be peace, security or prosperity without women playing their full part, free from violence and free from fear.”
