蘑菇视频

Your Excellency, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria,

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to join you for this important conference on 鈥�Women as Agents for Security and Peace鈥�, which comes at a pivotal juncture of history, marking the 25^th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. I extend my deep appreciation to the Republic of Austria for convening this timely event, and for being a steadfast champion of this cause.

听Since the turn of the century, the Security Council has increasingly called for women鈥檚 participation in all conflict prevention, recovery and peacebuilding efforts, and for a gender perspective to inform the work of peace and security stakeholders. After 25 years of annual Open Debates on this theme, there should, today, be no debate about the relevance of gender equality to social stability and peace 鈥� yet these concepts seem more contested than ever.

My mandate, as Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, was a specific response to a brutal reality of modern war: namely, the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war, terror, torture, and political repression. It was built on the foundational platform of resolution 1325, which forever changed the face of peace and security policy 鈥� affirming that no conflict or crisis is gender neutral, and no effective response can be gender-blind. Like bullets, bombs and blades, sexual violence attacks the lives and livelihoodsof innocent civilians, in a manner that is not collateral, but often calculated. In establishing this mandate, the Security Council affirmed that sexual violence, even in the midst of war, is preventable, not inevitable. Prevention entails tackling the root causes and invisible drivers of sexual violence, such as entrenched gender inequality and discrimination.

With the widening scope of warfare globally, my remit has continued to expand, now covering 21 situations of concern. Each year, we document the disproportionate impact of wartime sexual violence on women and girls, who consistently account for over 90 percent of 蘑菇视频-verified cases. Their recovery is central 鈥� not incidental 鈥� to conflict recovery. Left unaddressed, these atrocities inflict collective harmand enduring, generational trauma, which echoes across the lives of affected families and communities, including children born of war.

While dramatic normative, institutional, and operational progress has been made, these gains are now imperiled by political pushback and unprecedented humanitarian access and resource constraints. This comes at a time when civic space is shrinking, displacement rates are rising, poverty and food insecurity are increasingly feminized, democracy is in retreat, and the clock is being turned back on women鈥檚 rights.

Nowhere is this more painfully evident than in Afghanistan, where women were shut out of the peace table and, in that silence, saw their rights and very presence in public life erased. Their exclusion is not only a moral failure – it is a stark demonstration that sustainable peace cannot take root when half a nation is denied its voice, its agency, and its leadership. Yet it is a truth evident across time and space that women are not merely victims of conflict, but agents and architects of peace. Indeed, the Women, Peace and Security agenda was founded on the simple but powerful premise that sustainable peace is not possible when half of society is excluded 鈥� notably the half that has been humanity鈥檚 most reliable constituency for peace. Yet, the fact remains that local women peacebuilders working on the frontlines are still sidelined from the formal processes that confer power and prestige.

Protection and participation are mutually-reinforcing pillars of this agenda. Effective protection from sexual violence is an enabler of women鈥檚 participation and leadership. In this context, the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence serves to terrorize, stigmatize and silence those it targets. It is therefore not only a grave violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, but a direct assault on women鈥檚 participation, and by extension, on durable and inclusive peace. It enforces the gender hierarchies of dominance and subordination that marginalize women from public life. The rising risk of violence and reprisals has a chilling effect on women鈥檚 agency, pressuring countless politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers to withdraw from the public arena, as civic space narrows. In this way, sexual violence functions as a tool of political repression, attacking both the cause of gender equality and the cause of peace.

听Today, more women than ever before live in proximity to deadly conflicts that they neither chose to start nor had the power to prevent 鈥� some 676 million women now live within 50 kilometers of active conflict. Over the past two years, my mandate has documented an 87 percent increase in verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence, with victims ranging in age from just one to 75 years. Yet, instead of defending transformative progress, we are defunding lifesaving programs.

Women鈥檚 frontline organizations are facing catastrophic cuts at the very moment they are needed most, going from underfunded to unfunded, with half facing imminent closures within the next six months. We are told that these cuts to women鈥檚 lifelines are due to a lack of resources, yet military spending has continued to soar for over a decade, reaching a record-breaking 2.7 trillion dollars. Patriarchal power structures are investing more in the machinery of warfare than the architecture of peace. The return on that investment can only be further division, destruction and death. The world has strayed too far from the founding vision of resolution 1325. We know that there can be no security without women鈥檚 security, yet we are witnessing a reversal of gender equality gains. Reflect on the plight of women living in Afghanistan whose bodies have become prisons without bars. This backlash is not organic or spontaneous; it is a deliberately bankrolled campaign to roll-back human rights 鈥� rights which, by now, should be irreversible.

A lot has been said about the turbulence and chaos of the current geopolitical context. A shocking feature of this climate is that it has become more dangerous to denounce these crimes than to commit them. In just one tragic illustration documented by my mandate, a young Congolese woman was gang-raped by members of a militia in retaliation for speaking out against sexual violence. She was then forced to flee her home under threat of death, even as her attackers walk free. Are we prepared to accept a world in which women must risk their lives to raise their voice?

听At this critical moment of cutbacks and setbacks, we have reached an inflection point at which humanity and the multilateral system will either breakdown or breakthrough. The stakes could not be higher.

We live at a time of impossible choices. In 2025, humanitarian funding saw its greatest contraction in a decade, falling below 2016 levels. The cost of these cuts is measured in lives, livelihoods, and legitimacy. Budgets have also become battlefields, with each line-item a lifeline for civilians at risk, and every cut meaning a service denied, a story undocumented, a silence. Imagine having to decide which clinic must close its doors and which survivor must be turned out into the street; which village will no longer be reached by mobile medical or protection teams, and which victims of violence will walk for hours only to find no doctor, no counsellor, no safe shelter waiting. Imagine having to live with the consequences of that choice. How can we ask humanitarians in the field to keep reducing the ration of hope? These cuts and reversals do not represent efficiency; they represent complicity.

Member States may not always feel the real-world results of their decision to dilute resolutions by striking out language on women鈥檚 protection, assistance and rights. But the effects reverberate far beyond meeting rooms鈥� in warzones, they may force life and death decisions. For instance, service-providers have been forced to suspend care in the face of dwindling resources, including due to a lack of PEP-kits, which include treatments to prevent HIV, STIs, and unwanted pregnancies for survivors of sexual violence if taken within 72 hours of an assault. The percentage of survivors able to access services within that time window is strikingly low 鈥� in many warzones, it is less than one in three. In Haiti, the 蘑菇视频 reports that only 28 percent of rape survivors are able to access such care. In the Central African Republic, an estimated 29 percent of survivors are able to benefit from these life-saving interventions.

A continuum of care is needed long after the guns fall silent – from the emergency medical response to long-term trauma and stigma mitigation, to justice, reparations and redress. Any failure to sustain investment, any backtracking on established norms, any unraveling of existing institutions would not only betray the survivors, but further embolden the perpetrators. The promise of prevention remains unattained, but it is attainable. My mandate monitors and reports these violations not only for the sake of the historical record, but to save succeeding generations from this scourge.

The future of this agenda depends on safeguarding and expanding civic space for women鈥檚 leadership as agents of peace and transformative solutions. We must find ways to 鈥渇uture-proof鈥� our progress, and make it resilient to passing political, economic and security shocks. This cannot be achieved through a logic of peace at any price, which often means men with guns forgiving other men with guns for war crimes against women. It cannot be achieved through a medieval logic of might makes right. Every military or political leader who operates above the law 鈥� and every woman or girl who falls beneath the scope of its protection 鈥� increases the risk of global rule of lawlessness.

Excellencies,

Let us remember that as proponents of this agenda, we are not in the minority, but are part of a strong, cross-regional coalition. More than a dozen States now espouse Feminist Foreign Policies, 113 have adopted National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security, regional bodies including the AU, EU, Organization of American States, ASEAN, and NATO have ensured policy uptake through Regional Action Plans, and a majority of Security Council members have been signatories to the Shared Commitments on WPS for several successive years. This is a mainstream鈥� not a minority 鈥� position; there is strength in numbers and in global solidarity. Let history record who stood with the survivors and service-providers in their hour of acute need, and who stood aside or took no stand, just as it will record those who committed acts of war, atrocity, and aggression.

Even after the horrors and heartache I witnessed during nine years at the helm of this mandate, I remain hopeful. Survivors and activists remain resilient and continue to put their faith in the United Nations and the rules-based international order. We must justify their belief, maintain their trust, and prove them right by ensuring that women are able to not only survive the conflict, but shape the peace.

The opposition may be loud, but as renowned author Arundhati Roy assures us: 鈥�Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing鈥�. Twenty-five years on, the WPS agenda stands as proof that ideas can endure backlash, cynicism, dilution, and despair, to ultimately reshape the collective conscience and consciousness. We see the world that is possible in the faces of women rebuilding in the wake of war, planting the seeds of peace. Our task now is to give that brave new world the oxygen, attention, and opportunity to arrive.

Thank you.