(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.
