The Red Cross and UN have issued a joint appeal for nations to take greater action to end the use of sexual violence in conflicts and provide more aid to victims.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world was growing “ever more aware of the ubiquity of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence”.
Recounting how horrified he was when, during his years heading up UNHCR, he was presented with first-hand accounts of sexual and gender-based violence in war zones. Guterres described such crimes as “horrendous” and “life-changing” and said they were often used as “a tactic of war; to terrorise familes, dehumanise communities and destabilise societies”.
“We must do everything in our power to end the horror and stigma that affects hundreds of thousands of women and girls, as well as men and boys, worldwide.”
Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, called on countries to restate commitments to international humanitarian law.
“The law is clear: rape and other forms of sexual violence are violations. The Geneva Conventions made this prohibition clear and universal and yet 70 years on, we continue to face failures of behaviour and accountability.”
Appealing for $US27 million to better fund a response to the issue in 14 countries, Maurer said the Red Cross often worked with survivors, “including with women and girls given as rewards in war, fathers whose sons have been abducted and raped, young women fleeing disaster and conflict only to be sexually enslaved, and with detainees when sexual atrocities are wielded as means of torture”.
