蘑菇视频

Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening.

Last year in September, I co-hosted with Lord Ahmad the launch of the Principles for Global Action to tackle the stigma of sexual violence. I would like to sincerely commend this new initiative of addressing stigma through the medium of film-making.

Stigma is a short word, but its impact is long lasting. Its manifestations vary from region to region; can be both direct and indirect; and are multiple, intersecting and often lethal.

During my different field missions from DRC to Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cox鈥檚 Bazar, Myanmar, I have heard first-hand how:

• some victims resort to suicide rather than face the censure of their families while others have been executed for adultery or subjected to so-called 鈥渉onor killings鈥�;
• survivors are often rejected by their spouse, families, communities; others are forced to marry their rapist in the name of restoring social harmony and family honor;
• women have resorted to unsafe abortions in the wake of rape and forced impregnation; others have died while giving birth in lonely, grueling conditions, foregoing medical care to avoid public humiliation.

Stigma knows no gender.

Sexual violence against men and boys is far from rare.聽 It is not only domestic laws, which fail to recognise male victims, that stop men reporting sexual crimes. Stigma plays a fundamental role too.

In many societies, male survivors have their social status, identity and sexual orientation called into question, sometimes resulting in their arrest.

Stigma has no age restriction.聽

It is as cruel to children as it is to adults and darkens what could be bright futures for young victims. These children are amongst the most hidden, and yet vulnerable to stigma. Whilst the violence itself was not perpetrated against them, the stigma attached to their conception reverberates throughout their lives.

This shows us how the shadow cast by rape is a long one. Children born of rape are often left in a legal limbo. Lacking a birth certificate or identity papers, they may become Stateless. Some fall prey to recruitment by armed and violent extremist groups.

This litany of hardship and horror leads many survivors of sexual violence to describe the ensuing stigma as worse than the violence itself.

The stigma survivors face from within their own communities hinders recovery and is the main reason they decide to remain silent. Until stigma is addressed, survivors can never fully move on with their lives. It also encourages impunity as it deters survivors from coming forward to bring the perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.

From being ostracised by their own family to becoming a social and economic outcast within the local community, the impact on a survivor鈥檚 life can be as catastrophic as the attack itself.

Shame and stigma are built-in to the logic of sexual violence employed as a tactic of war and terrorism. Victim-blame, leading to social exclusion, is precisely what gives the weapon of rape its uniquely destructive power.

Aggressors understand that this crime can turn victims into outcasts, so it will rarely be reported.

Let us have no doubt about the urgency of this issue.

We need to tackle stigma as an emergency because lives are at stake.

Many victims who survive sexual violence do not survive its social repercussions.

Rape is still the only crime for which a society is more likely to stigmatize the victim, than to punish the perpetrator. And it is the only crime that casts a long shadow of social disgrace upon the victim.

We must reverse and re-direct this stigma, to send a clear signal that the only shame of rape is in committing, commanding or condoning it.

We must reject 鈥� once and for all 鈥� the notion that either sexual violence or its attendant stigma are inevitable.

The physical, psychological and social harms, I have just highlighted, are preventable, and we all have a role to play in preventing them.

More can and must be done聽to help heal the deep physical and psychological scars of survivors, and to offer them a hope to rebuild their shattered lives.

I would like to thank all of you present for the critical role you are playing in your respective spheres of influence.

Finally, I would like to commend the film-makers for their activism through film-making. In addition to being a powerful tool of social change, the healing power of films cannot be underestimated. Thank you for shining the spotlight on the survivors of sexual violence and for giving them visibility so that the world does not remain ignorant of their suffering.