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Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues,

A woman walks past a checkpoint in a nation at war – she risks rape, beating, robbery, harassment, even murder at gunpoint in a climate of impunity. I have seen the fear in the eyes of such women. Yet still they carry on – fetching water under shellfire, farming fields to feed their families, bartering for medicine to treat the wounded, while all around them rages the chaos of wars they neither chose to start, nor had the power to prevent. Women on the frontlines and the breadlines remain sidelined from policy decisions, despite the fact that – across time and space – women are the most reliable and effective force for peace.

In my role as Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, I have borne witness for almost a decade to what happens when gender equality is treated as peripheral to matters of war and peace: women’s bodies become battlefields, survivors are silenced, and cycles of violence echo across generations. My mandate was created in response to a brutal reality of modern war: the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war, terror, torture and political repression. Like bullets, bombs and blades, sexual violence attacks the lives and livelihoods of civilians, in a manner that is not collateral, but calculated; not inevitable, but preventable.

Each year, my mandate documents the disproportionate impact of wartime sexual violence on women and girls, who consistently account for over 90 percent of UN-verified cases, with victims ranging in age from one to 75 years. Their recovery is central – not incidental – to conflict recovery. Conflict-related sexual violence does not occur in a vacuum. Its roots lie deep in structural inequalities that concentrate political and economic power in the hands of the few. At a time when conflicts are multiplying, democratic norms are eroding, and humanitarian systems are stretched to breaking point, Feminist Foreign Policies are a test of whose security matters, and whether we are prepared to allocate power and resources differently.

For centuries, security has been measured primarily in terms of borders defended, territory conquered, arsenals expanded, adversaries defeated. Yet, for the estimated 676 million women and girls living under the shadow of lethal conflict, human security is measured differently: Can they safely walk to work or school; reach a clinic to report rape without retaliation; or survive being displaced from their homeland? In line with the widening scope of warfare globally, my remit has expanded to cover 21 situations. The number of cases verified by the Â鶹APP has more than doubled since last year, reaching 9,788 incidents – a figure that remains indicative, rather than comprehensive, given chronic underreporting. The list of State and non-State parties implicated in patterns of conflict-related sexual violence has reached 77 armed actors. Of these, more than 65 percent are persistent perpetrators, meaning they have appeared in the list for several years, without taking corrective action to address violations and comply with international law.

Behind the facts and figures in UN reports are countless unseen faces – mothers, daughters, sisters – each unique and irreplaceable.

• In Sudan, women have described the use of rape in streets and public squares to terrorize populations, in a context where healthcare has been decimated, and women’s organizations are underfunded and under fire. Mothers report being forced to choose between obtaining medical care for a raped daughter or food for her siblings.
• In the DRC, a young woman was gang-raped by members of a militia in retaliation for speaking out against sexual violence. She was forced to flee her home, even as her attackers walk free, in a region where it has become more dangerous to denounce these crimes than to commit them.
• In Haiti, where gang-rape is rampant as a tool of territorial control and collective punishment, only 28 percent of victims are able to access care within the critical 72 hour window in which HIV, STIs and unwanted pregnancies can be prevented.
• In Ukraine, I heard the testimony of a woman who was raped by Russian soldiers and forced to wait two months for their departure to find a gynecologist to treat her. Due to this delay, she has developed lifelong medical complications.

The guns may change hands, but what I hear from women is heartbreakingly consistent. They say: ‘What happened to me could have been prevented. No other woman or girl should have a story like mine’.

Although gender equality has been recognized as the number one predictor of social stability, it continues to be dismissed as a ‘soft issue’ that is secondary to ‘hard security’. The result is that lifelines for survivors are severed as military spending soars to 2.7 trillion; civic space is crowded out by authoritarian strong men; and women who should be shaping the peace are struggling merely to survive the war. Humanitarian needs have dramatically outstripped available resources, forcing service-providers to ‘hyper-prioritize’. Imagine being forced to decide which clinic must close its doors, which survivor must be turned away, and which victim of violence will walk for hours only to find no safe shelter, no doctor, no relief.

At this critical moment of cutbacks and setbacks, we have reached an inflection point at which humanity and the multilateral system will either breakdown or breakthrough. An estimated one in five displaced or refugee women caught up in conflict suffer sexual violence, yet less than one percent of humanitarian aid is dedicated to addressing it. We must convert the political economy of war into a political economy of peacebuilding – defending progress, not defunding programs. The future hinges on our ability to silence the guns and amplify the voices of women.

Excellencies,

As champions of this cause, we are part of a broad, cross-regional coalition. We must stand together, with survivors and service-providers in their hour of need, on the right side of history. Fifteen countries have committed to apply a feminist lens to their foreign policy. The majority of Security Council members have signed the Shared Commitments on Women, Peace and Security, and 117 countries have adopted National Action Plans to advance this agenda. There is strength in numbers and in solidarity.

Today, we know what works. We have the expertise; we have the normative frameworks; we have drawn the red lines; and built the right institutional architecture. We now need sustained political resolve and financial resources equal to the scale of the challenge. In this effort, I wish to thank the Government of Spain for its inspired leadership in hosting us, and in supporting UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, which I Chair, to deliver coordinated, survivor-centered support that turns global commitments into local impact. I urge all governments here to join Spain, Sweden, Canada, Germany and others in providing operational support to my mandate through our CRSV Multi-Partner Trust Fund, as an indicator of feminist foreign policy in practice.

Acclaimed author, Jeanette Winterson, in taking stock of how far women have come since winning the right to vote, says: ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere – we must reach out, speak up, be courageous and finish the job’. That job is gender equality – the great unfinished business of our time. Today, a new generation of women are rising up for bodily autonomy, for the right to shape the future, for the freedom to walk by day or night without fear. The road is long and littered with obstacles, detours and lost ground. What matters is that no one should have to walk it alone.

Thank you.