26th May 2016
Baroness Anelay, Foreign Office Minister and the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, paid a brief visit to Rome last week. The main focus of her trip was to meet religious men and women from Catholic congregations working in Africa and elsewhere to help the victims of sexual violence in conflict. The […]
9th October 2015
On 13 October there will be a High Level Review at the United Nations to commemorate 15 years since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. This was a ground breaking resolution that recognised not only the inordinate impact of war on women and girls, but also the pivotal role women should and do […]
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12th March 2014 Washington DC, USA
Africa has had a “bad start” to 2014. Or so I keep hearing. But I wonder, how does a whole continent have a bad start? Do a billion people collectively have a bad day? What people usually mean is that Africa has experienced a lot of violence this year. No denying that. Horrific atrocities in […]
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4th March 2014 Washington DC, USA
On Tuesday evening at Georgetown University, the UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, received an award from his friend and former US counterpart, Hillary Clinton. The award recognizes his leadership in steering the energies of the British government into the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, an international project to end the use of rape and sexual assault […]
17th April 2013
This year it will be 65 years since the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Open any newspaper or news website today and you find depressingly many and varied examples of continuing breaches of those universal rights in countries around the world. Advancing respect for universal human rights is a priority […]
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12th April 2013
This week, Foreign Ministers from the Group of Eight (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, US and Russia) met in London. They looked at a wide range of issues, including the situation in the Middle East (specifically Syria and Iran), Africa, DPRK and climate change. Two particular issues they addressed illustrate that diplomacy has a […]