(Photo by The Asahi Shimbun/The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
Yesterday Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said: “Sexual violence is morally abhorrent, it is illegal, and yet it is still happening all around the world.” And so he carried on his speech at the opening of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative conference. It was more platitude than anything else. I sensed that he was missing the real point and on this issue was plainly out of his depth.
The reality is that seeking to address sexual violence in the midst of conflict is not where the protection of women and girls should start. Women will become targets in war when the countries at war are already places where the rule of law and women’s rights are not respected. This was something echoed by Nobel laureates Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, who told the conference that the male-dominated societies and social norms that dismiss women and girls rights are the foundations of rape during war.
Nadia, an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist who was kidnapped and abused by Islamic State, also pointed out that those who raped and killed women like her are still free. She was right to hold a mirror to the leaders who were in that room. She and many survivors are far from getting the justice that was promised to them at the last conference at which they were asked to speak. Because if we had taken action 10 years ago when the UK first held the flagship conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict, I don’t believe Nadia would need to do what she must today.
I kept thinking this as she and many other survivors who are meant to be at the core of this conference spoke. I know how much it takes to tell a room full of people about your abuse and the hope you feel that one of these leaders will do something.
Sadly, the reality is that not enough is being done to meet the needs of survivors, or to deter perpetrators from using rape as a weapon of war. Economic and political interests are put first, meaning world leaders are treating some conflicts as being more important than others. I really don’t mean to talk down this conference because the women behind it at the FCDO are incredible . Apart from of the foreign minister of the morally repugnant Hungarian government who was given a platform, the other speakers, who were mostly women, knew what they were talking about and what was needed.
A feminist foreign policy here in the UK is the way forward. This is something Canada has done and why the speech from its minister was the best from an official on the opening day. I have faith that the rest of the conference will be focused more on delivering and also on other conflicts going on right now, because as much as I understand that we need to talk about Ukraine, there are also women and girls in Africa and survivors from past conflicts in South America who need us as well.
Progress is possible but Rishi Sunak must take the lead as Prime Minister. Only then will other world leaders take action.
In other news...
Jill Scott is the Queen of the Jungle — I dislike that title. But this is the world we live in and this what the winner of I Am a Celebrity is known as. So congratulations to her.
But the real story for me is that we still don’t do enough to appreciate her and her team — the victors at the European Championships in the summer. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, I concede, but the English men’s team, as we know, have not won anything since 1966.
I do love football and tonight, though I will be supporting England, I will be wanting both them and Wales to get into the next round. But I will also be reminding people that the women’s team has a better record. Although we’re getting there we have to keep supporting them, just as much as we are backing the men.
