If you’re in Ottawa and don’t know what this means, you clearly weren’t downtown last night.
That’s when we lit up the façade of the High Commission on Elgin in red to show our solidarity with the work of over 1,000 people in London at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. Foreign Ministers, Defence Ministers, Development Ministers, NGOs, experts, and just ordinary people from all over the world have come together in London this week to make a real difference in the fight against rape in war.
And they’re not the only ones. In capital cities all over the globe, buildings have been lit up with the Summit logo to show the world’s determination to finally stop this dreadful crime from happening wherever there is conflict.
That’s not all we’ve done here in Ottawa. A while back we teamed up with United Nations Association in Canada (UNA-Canada) to deliver an amazing day-long debate among young Ottawans, with each taking on the role of a different UN player: an affected country, a donor country, an international organisation or an NGO. By the end of the day these extraordinary young Canadians had negotiated a Resolution to take to the Summit. Don’t think this was easy! There were plenty of strong arguments about blame and responsibility, about how you help survivors and how you stop rape happening in the first place. But just as we saw last September at the UN General Assembly, when we were all argued out, everybody understood that the time to act was now.
There was more too. I hope you didn’t miss the screening of the powerful film “Seeds of Hope” a couple of weeks ago. This was the kind of event that changes the way you think. The British High Commission partnered with the Nobel Womens’ Initiative to show the documentary, shot in the Eastern Congo by a British director Fiona Lloyd-Davies.
It didn’t need to be graphic. Just the words and the faces of the survivors and the perpetrators told the story. One of surviving horrific violence, being rejected by family and community, having children born of rape who were rejected in their turn… But also of hope as brave women came together to try to re-build their lives.
When the lights came back up there was a panel discussion with the director and a series of courageous people in Ottawa who havededicated their lives to helping end this curse. I know everyone who was there at the Mayfair went out into the night determined to do what they could to contribute to the fight to end rape in war.
So what can you do? Well, you can start by tuning into what’s happening in London this week…. Rape in war-time doesn’t have to be just ‘one of those things’. We can stop it. The time to act is now!
