Why I’ll be wearing orange on 25 November

I’ve spent most of my career working on Africa and its issues. It’s a beautiful, resilient, inspiring continent. The people are simply extraordinary. But I’ve also seen first-hand the prevalence of violence against women there. That’s true in conflict – in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and most recently as Ambassador to the Central African Republic. That’s true of violence against human rights defenders – in my last posting the niece of a renowned human rights defender was gang-raped in a case of mistaken identity: the attackers were actually targeting her daughter. And it’s true more widely in society: in Cameroon, for example, an estimated 53% of women have experienced violence, mostly at the hands of their husbands.

But this is a global problem. A 2013 study showed that 35% of women everywhere have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse, although other studies have shown that this can rise to 70%. Almost half of all women killed last year were killed by intimate partners. Around 120m girls worldwide have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts: more than 133m have experienced female genital mutilation of some form. Around 4.4 m girls are forced into sexual exploitation; another 11.5m are victims of forced labour. The statistics make for grim reading . I worry often about the extra risks that my two daughters face as they prepare for what is already an increasingly dangerous world to the one when I was a teenager.

In the UK, according to Home Office figures, 1.2 m women are victim of domestic abuse. 400,000 women are sexually assaulted or raped annually. There were 1500 cases of forced marriage and 2 women are killed each week by partners, ex-partners or lovers.

And India is, of course, not immune. Reported violence against women in India is on the increase. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NRCB), a crime is committed against a women every 3 minutes in India, with a molestation case every 15 minutes; a kidnapping and abduction case every 23 minutes; and a rape case every 29 minutes. An estimated 6,000 women are killed each year because of dowry. The actual incidence of these crimes is certainly considerably higher given under-reporting. In India, marital rape is not a criminal offence. More than 50% of pregnant women have experienced severe violent physical injuries. Census figures which show millions more males than females imply that female infanticide is alive in India. Acid throwing has increased. Dowry deaths are reducing, but at the start of this year a woman and her one-year old child were burned alive over a dowry dispute.

Tackling violence against women in all its insidious and unconscionable forms is a UK priority. On 22 July, the British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted the first “Girl Summit” to mobilise domestic and international efforts to end forced genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage within a generation. In May 2012, the former Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the Special Envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie, launched a Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI). 155 countries committed to ending Sexual Violence in Conflict at the UN in September 2013. The PSVI not only advocates against sexual violence, but is supported by a team of experts including doctors, lawyers, police, psychologists, forensic specialists and experts in the care and protection of survivors and witnesses that is deployed to support local resources in conflict areas. The team has already been sent to the Syrian borders, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Libya, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Department for International Development (DfID) ensures that tackling violence against women is a key part of its work in the world’s poorest countries, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office runs projects in many other countries, supporting local NGOs that are fighting for women’s right to be free from violence. The UK has also agreed a cross-departmental National Action Plan (NAP) for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security. the political will and capacity of states to do more.

25 November is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and signifies 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence in the run-up to International Human Rights Day, a date chosen to commemorate the three Mirabal sisters, political activists from the Dominican Republic assassinated in 1960 under the Rafael Trujillo regime. This year, the United Nations Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women invites all of us that oppose violence against women to show solidarity by wearing orange. That’s why my team and I will be wearing orange.

Will you?