Angelina Jolie has decried the lack of action by governments to support survivors of wartime rape as \u201cdeeply painful and frustrating\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The actor and UN special envoy for refugees, who launched the\u00a0Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative\u00a0(PSVI) with the then foreign secretary William Hague in 2012, said there had not been \u201cnearly enough\u201d progress on bringing perpetrators to justice, prioritising survivors\u2019 needs or ending impunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing in the Guardian today, she said: \u201cThere has been some progress \u2026 but it has not been nearly enough to meet the needs of survivors, or to deter perpetrators from using rape as a weapon of war in almost every new conflict in the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the commitments governments made, we have not seen significant, lasting action at the global level. This is deeply painful and frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the British government marks the 10th anniversary of PSVI with a\u00a0conference in London, Jolie said: \u201cWe meet and discuss these horrors and agree that they should never be allowed to happen again. We promise to draw \u2013 and to hold \u2013 that line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut when it comes to hard choices about how to implement these promises, we run into the same problems time and again. We run into some security council members abusing their veto power, such as in the case of Syria. We run into economic and political interests being put first, treating some conflicts as more important than others. And we run into a lack of political will, meaning that governments in recent years have downgraded the importance of efforts to combat war-zone sexual violence, despite the direct link to international peace and security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ministers and representatives from 70 countries are expected to attend the two-day PSVI summit, which begins on Monday. They will be joined by survivors of violence and\u00a0Nobel laureates Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tariq Ahmad, the UK prime minister\u2019s special representative for PSVI, said the conference will \u201cdrive new action\u201d, secure new commitments (including funding) and \u201cdiscuss how to strengthen the global response to these crimes and how to address some of the real root causes, including gender discrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UK government announced on Monday \u00a312.5m of new funding over three years to tackle violence. Most of the money will be used to support survivors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said: \u201cThe very threat of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war should bring immediate international condemnation and swift action to stop those attacks before they start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo today, we stand in solidarity to support survivors and to bring justice. But also to send an unequivocal message to those who order, allow or perpetrate sexual violence: we will not tolerate it and we will push for perpetrators to be prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Nimco Ali, the chief executive of\u00a0the Five Foundation, an organisation working for women and girls around the world, said pledging money was not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is not enough that we see renewed commitments,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has been proven they are not sufficient or reliable. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office needs to embed change at its core and update its own systemic priorities by putting the principles of gender equality at the heart of its aid and diplomacy policies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali added that money must be given to local women\u2019s organisations. \u201cUnless international aid and foreign diplomacy strategies include unshakeable and specific financial commitments for women and girls at grassroots level \u2013 in countries where the specific instances of violence are happening \u2013 we will be back here again in 10 years\u2019 time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eva Tabbasam, the director of Gender Action for Peace and Security, said \u00a312.5m was \u201ca drop in the ocean compared to the amount of money that has been cut from gender equality programming\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year\u00a0saw a \u00a33bn reduction in the overseas aid budget, with further cuts estimated in the next few years. An\u00a0analysis of UK aid\u00a0between 2019 and 2022 showed the cuts had a significant detrimental impact on women and girls\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yasmin Sooka, the chair of the UN commission on human rights in South Sudan, said the war in Ukraine meant that the organisations that survivors of sexual violence depend on in South Sudan and other countries had seen their funds cut in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe international community needs to stop these violations in South Sudan, but in the absence of peace at least we should be able to patch up the victims,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A PSVI summit held in London in 2014 \u2013 attended by 1,700 politicians, celebrities, and survivors \u2013 was criticised for costing more than\u00a0five times\u00a0the 2015 UK budget for tackling rape in war zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, a\u00a0damning report\u00a0by the aid watchdog said PSVI had \u201cnot fully delivered on its ambitions and is at risk of letting survivors down\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Angelina Jolie has decried the lack of action by governments to support survivors of wartime rape as \u201cdeeply painful and frustrating\u201d. The actor and UN special envoy for refugees, who launched the\u00a0Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative\u00a0(PSVI) with the then foreign secretary William Hague in 2012, said there had not been \u201cnearly enough\u201d progress on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10618,6850,2872,11394,5268,731,5249,7960,11961,8982,1149,10767,5262,12326,10347,9520,2264,8100,10840,5910,10954,893,10419,3684,6864,5612,5396,11698,3174,5762,5524,5807,5655,5752,7584,1898,6730,6264,3349,12605,10412,5180,5465,6555,9539,5251,3954,5320,36,594],"class_list":["post-27766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-actor","tag-aid","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-attacks","tag-british","tag-british-government","tag-budget","tag-case","tag-celebrities","tag-combat","tag-commonwealth","tag-conflict","tag-cut","tag-decade","tag-diplomacy","tag-discrimination","tag-government","tag-hague","tag-human-rights","tag-initiative","tag-international","tag-james-cleverly","tag-justice","tag-london","tag-ministers","tag-money","tag-peace","tag-politicians","tag-prime-minister","tag-rape","tag-refugees","tag-risk","tag-security","tag-security-council","tag-sex","tag-special-envoy","tag-sudan","tag-survivors","tag-syria","tag-uk","tag-uk-government","tag-ukraine","tag-un","tag-veto","tag-victims","tag-war","tag-will","tag-women","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}