Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict: the importance of challenging stigma

In 2014, the UK hosted the Global Summit to end sexual violence in conflict, bringing together more than 120 countries, over 100 NGOs and international organisations and more than 900 experts and survivors.  The Summit was a milestone in bringing the issue of sexual violence in conflict to international attention and encouraging governments around the world to do more to prevent and respond to it and the UK continues to play a leading role in tackling this issue globally.

In the two years since then, we’ve been busy implementing the outcomes of the summit. We’ve trained over 17,000 military and police personnel; committed over £30 million of UK funding and deployed our team of experts over 80 times.

This drive has been led by Baroness Anelay, the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict. Her work has included PSVI-focused visits over the last two years to Colombia, DRC, Kosovo and Iraq. And it was her meetings with survivors during these visits that inspired her to identify tackling survivor stigma as a major new strand for our work.

Baroness Anelay in the DRC

Stigma is a really important issue, because we know that survivors of sexual violence can be ostracised from society, treated differently by family members, cut off from support networks and denied justice; and that this can have long-lasting effects on community reconciliation and stabilisation.

With thanks to our posts across the world, the #EndStigma campaign is already well underway. #EndStigma workshops are being arranged in the DRC, Somalia, South Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Colombia and Nigeria. These will raise awareness of the need to tackle stigma, develop our understanding of the challenges in individual countries, and identify what needs to be done.

This is why, during Baroness Anelay’s visit to New York this week as part of the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting, she will host an event on ‘Challenging the stigma of sexual violence’. This event will bring together the international community and civil society to rally global action on tackling stigma. We will be sharing live updates from the event and you can follow us on @ForeignOffice and @End_svc using #UNGA, #GlobalBritain and #EndStigma.