24 June 2025
Delivered by: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Distinguished panellists
Colleagues and friends,
As conflicts grow and spread across the world, we are witnessing a shameless repudiation of the basic rules of warfare.
Gender-based violence in conflict, post-conflict and humanitarian settings is rising.
Full reporting of every case is impossible, particularly when humanitarian, human rights and NGO staff are attacked in conflict zones, and prevented from accessing them. But in recent years my Office, and the Council's Commissions of Inquiry, have documented thousands of horrific cases of gender-based violence – in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Myanmar; Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including both Gaza and the West Bank; and Ukraine, among many others. In Haiti, women and girls are increasingly subjected to sexual violence, including sexual enslavement. A recent decree establishing two Specialized Judicial Units, supported by my Office, marks critical progress toward fighting impunity for sexual violence in the country. In Sudan, gang rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence are pervasive – and in West Darfur and other areas, they have been used in ethnically motivated attacks as a weapon of war.
This is abominable. Fighters are being encouraged or instructed to victimize women, often as a deliberate weapon of warfare – to terrorize communities and force them to flee; and to silence the voices of women who speak out against war-mongering, and seek to build peace.
Twenty-five years ago, the Security Council's landmark Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security reaffirmed the important role of women in preventing and resolving conflict, and emphasized the need to prevent gender-based violence and end impunity, particularly for rape and other forms of sexual violence, in situations of armed conflict or post-conflict.
Since then, many resolutions have emphasised that gender-based violence, including sexual violence, is a crime that can and must be prevented and punished, including under international law.
Many reports have been commissioned. Massive efforts have been made to uncover and document gender-based violence in conflict, post-conflict and humanitarian settings – including by Special Representative Pramila Patten, who is present today; by this Council; and by my Office.
Important steps have been taken to reinforce and detail international norms and legal standards, notably by CEDAW, whose Chair we welcome today.
At the centre of all this is the courage of survivors – like Grace Achan, who is also on today's panel.
Tireless work has been done by civil society groups and women's human rights defenders to assist many survivors of gender-based violence to heal. They have enabled access to medical care, including sexual and reproductive health services. Organisations like the Global Survivors Fund have advocated for reparations.
And a few emblematic trials of perpetrators have taken place, for crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Syria, Uganda and elsewhere. Some have related to universal jurisdiction.
But still, those trials are few and far between.
Overall, most perpetrators of gender-based violence continue to go scot free – including men who are directly responsible for massive and brutal sexual attacks that should shock the conscience of every human being.
Meanwhile, weapons continue to flow.
And recent cuts to global aid budgets are sharply restricting the work of women’s groups. Many of these groups are close partners of my Office, as we work to support survivors from the Central African Republic and Colombia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South Sudan and beyond.
Failure to provide medical care – including for genital mutilations, sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy – has immense long-term impact.
Failure to provide psychosocial support leaves young girls and women alone, outcast and traumatised.
Cuts to humanitarian and development aid by international donors are also impacting prevention programmes, including efforts by my Office and others to train police and security forces to comply with international law standards. This, too, has deeply harmful repercussions in the short, medium and long term.
Distinguished participants,
To my sorrow, I have met many victims of conflict-related gender-based violence.
They often endure unimaginable physical, emotional and social pain. A study in Kosovo found last year that 86 percent of survivors continued to experience post-traumatic stress disorder 25 years after the conflict. The course of their lives is forever harmed, and the fabric of their communities is torn.
The broader social impact is also profound. Time and again, States have acknowledged that conflict-related gender-based violence damages prospects for reconciliation, peacebuilding and durable peace.
And yet States are still not taking the decisive, concerted action that would put the perpetrators behind bars and deter future crimes.
We are still not addressing the underlying discrimination, gender inequalities and harmful gender and social norms that enable and empower the perpetrators of gender-based crimes.
We are not addressing the pain and trauma of survivors with anything close to an appropriate level of support.
We are not meeting the minimum requirement to prevent women from being silenced, and support their participation and leadership in preventing and resolving conflict, and building peace.
It is not enough to mark, every June 19, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.
This needs to be our utmost priority, every single day of the year.
Thank you. I look forward to your thoughts.