The evidence-based approach of listening to and centering survivors can help to address various forms of violence from those affected by COVID-19 to those experiencing racial violence.
Remarks by SRSG Patten, Women & Armed Forces: Parity in Uniform Conference organized by Italian Ministry of Defense
Format
Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,
I commend the Ministry of Defence for organizing this very important and timely conference and for shining the spotlight on “Women and Armed Forces”.
Today, I will be speaking about conflict-related sexual violence, which has been the least-reported and least-condemned crime of war; a crime shrouded in a conspiracy of silence that shields the perpetrators and isolates the victims.
The last annual Report of the Secretary-General for the year 2019, which was debated before the Security Council in July, paints a harrowing picture of sexual violence used as a tactic of war, torture and terror, and a tool of political repression. Some 3000 cases of conflict-related sexual violencein19 countries were recorded with women and girls accounting for more than 2,500 of the reported cases. In 848 cas