Madam President, Excellencies, Esteemed Civil Society Briefers, Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

When this mandate was created, 17 years ago, conflict-related sexual violence was described as “history’s greatest silence” and “the world’s least-condemned crime of war”. Darfur and Eastern DRC were the epicentres of this crisis, yet, today, while grave protection risks remain, the DRC stands as an example that through political engagement, national ownership, and international cooperation, we can begin to bend the arc of history toward progress. The silence can be broken, and crimes can be condemned – with 35 arms bearers convicted for sexual violence last year and reparations paid to survivors in line with court decisions. Medical, psychosocial and livelihood support was delivered to over 45,000 displaced survivors, and more than 1,000 children born of rape were recognized and registered. If this can be done in the DRC – a situation that could not be more complex – then no leader anywhere can claim that change is beyond reach.

In the report before us today, the Secretary-General notes a downward trend in cases attributed to the Congolese National Police over the past five years. This trajectory follows the concerted engagement of the Government with my mandate to enhance accountability and develop dedicated roadmaps for the security sector. Accordingly, the delisting of the national police will be considered in the next reporting cycle, in light of sustained progress in implementing commitments.

I commend the political courage of the DRC, as the first-ever country directly affected by this scourge to host this Open Debate. It sets both precedent and an example to those who deny sexual violence. Painstaking progress has been made to break the vicious cycle of violence and impunity and replace it with a virtuous cycle of recognition and response. It is particularly inspiring that today’s meeting is presided over by Her Excellency Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Prime Minister of the DRC – the first woman to hold this high office.

In a similar vein, I would like to remind this Council that in 2017, the Armed Forces of Côte d’Ivoire were delisted from the annex to the annual report, following compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions. This provides an instructive example of what can be achieved through engagement with my mandate, and political will to “honor the promise of international law”, by preventing the recurrence of these crimes. More recently, my mandate has supported the Somali National Army to develop a Command Order on CRSV – a critical preventive measure translating international commitments into clear operational directives.

Madam President,

The promise of international law has never been more relevant – or more severely tested. The report before us holds a mirror up to the changing face of war. It is yet another reflection of a world in crisis, marked by intensifying conflicts, runaway military spending (soaring close to 3 trillion per annum), record levels of forced displacement, deepening geopolitical divides, shrinking civic space, and rising reprisals against women’s rights defenders and journalists who bring these atrocities to the attention of the world. This is compounded by erosion of respect for human rights, including virulent backlash against gender equality norms. In the second quarter of the 21st century, a resurgence of “might makes right” logic is marring human progress towards equality, justice, and peace.

Against this backdrop, the annual report of the Secretary-General documents 9,788 cases of conflict-related sexual violence verified by the United Nations in 2025 – more than double the number recorded last year. Yet such figures can never capture the full scale and magnitude of this chronically underreported crime. The data represents only the cases the United Nations was able to verify, despite access constraints, insecurity, collapsed systems of care, UN Mission drawdowns, and entrenched social stigma. The true toll is far higher, with humanitarians in the field estimating that for every case that reaches a clinic, 10 to 20 go unreported and unaddressed. All information is presented in accordance with United Nations standards on safety, confidentiality, and survivor protection. The report presents only the incidents, patterns and trends that are verified beyond any shadow of a doubt – adhering to a rigorous, consistent methodology across time and space – so that focus can be placed on addressing the substance of the violations and measures required to prevent them rather than debating their veracity. This is critical to closing the compliance gap between laws on paper and warfare in practice.

The report spans 21 situations of concern, revealing brutal patterns of rape, gang-rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and trafficking, as deliberate tactics of war, terror, torture, and political repression, by both State and non-State actors, including violent extremist and terrorist groups. The highest number of UN-verified cases were recorded in the DRC, Haiti, Sudan and the Central African Republic. Every case tells two stories: one of the failure of systems to protect civilians at risk, and another of the climate of impunity that emboldens the perpetrators. Women and girls remain the primary targets, accounting for approximately 90 percent of victims each year. Men and boys were particularly exposed to sexual violence in detention, as a form of punishment and humiliation, used to extract information and coerce confessions. Persons with disabilities and LGBTQI individuals faced specific risks of persecution and abuse, exacerbated by intersecting forms of discrimination.

Victims ranged in age from just one to over 70 years. Nearly 3,000 of these cases were committed against children, representing a 37 percent increase from last year, inflicting enduring, generational trauma.

These acts are not incidental, but integral, to the repertoire of military aggression and terror. They are used to advance wider geopolitical goals – driving forced displacement, punishing perceived opponents, altering demography, and fracturing families, communities and futures. These crimes ruin lives and fuel conflict. They can no longer be dismissed as “collateral damage” or the random, “opportunistic” excesses of a few renegades claiming the “spoils of war”. They are a calculated assault on human dignity, community cohesion, and collective security. They rank among the gravest violations of international humanitarian and criminal law, for which no amnesty or immunity is permissible.

Across multiple contexts, we are witnessing alarming trends, such as:

  • Displaced and refugee women and girls being exposed to heightened risks, including abduction and trafficking, with ramifications for regional security. It is estimated that one in five displaced or refugee women caught up in conflict suffer sexual violence, yet less than one percent of humanitarian aid is dedicated to addressing it.
  • Sexual violence, including forced prostitution and trafficking, continues to be a chronic feature of the political economy of war, used to consolidate control over contested territory and lucrative natural resources.
  • In the digital sphere, sexual violence is used as part of extortion strategies to generate revenue for armed groups, with sexually explicit threats used to target and silence women activists online.
  • Incidents of sexual violence have become not only more widespread in number, but more brutal in nature, accompanied by extreme physical violence, including killings to silence victims before they can bear witness. Victims have also taken their own lives in the wake of these assaults, which were too often met with social stigma, rather than solidarity and support. In Haiti, a 19–year-old woman who was gang-raped in 2023, committed suicide after being raped again in 2025, in an unrelenting climate of fear.
  • The illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons continues to fuel sexual violence in 70 to 90 percent of cases.
  • The formal justice system remains inaccessible for many survivors, owing to distance, insecurity, and a lack of legal aid, resulting in recourse to customary and traditional dispute resolution, which often prescribes marriage between victim and perpetrator as a so-called “settlement”.
  • Overall, the level of compliance by parties to conflict with existing obligations remains low. Enhanced use of targeted sanctions is needed to raise the cost of these crimes, as a form of deterrence to leverage behavioural change.

The report lists a total of 77 parties in its annex, 62 of which are non-State actors. More than 65 percent are persistent perpetrators, meaning they have appeared on the list for five or more years, without taking corrective action. Pursuant to Resolution 2242 (2015), such parties are barred from contributing troops or police to UN peacekeeping operations.

New listings this cycle include non-State actors in the DRC and Haiti, and two State actors in Israel and the Russian Federation. At this time last year, both State parties were put on notice due to protection concerns, including patterns of sexual violence and systematic denials of access to independent UN monitors. The Secretary-General formally communicated to both parties, on 11 August 2025, the measures that needed to be taken, namely cessations of violations, ensuring an unimpeded access for United Nations monitors, zero tolerance, prevention,  non-recurrence, and justice and accountability. Regrettably, neither the violations nor the conflicts have ceased, and no tangible progress has been recorded. In the case of the Israeli armed and security forces, patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence persist, primarily in detention settings, but also at checkpoints and during military operations, with an increase in the number of verified cases, despite victims being pressured not to report abuse. The Russian armed forces continue to be implicated in patterns of sexual violence, primarily against Prisoners of War and civilian detainees, and against civilians living in the temporarily occupied territories, since their invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Madam President,

I want to be clear. The list is not, and was never intended to be, a political instrument; it is a protection tool. Inclusion on the list is not an end point, but an opportunity for engagement. My door remains open to all parties to support the adoption and implementation of timebound commitments to strengthen prevention, oversight, protection, justice and accountability. The aim is not simply to document and attribute violations, but to end them.

Likewise, we do not compile these reports simply to count the victims; we compile them because the victims are counting on us. They are counting on this Council to turn documentation into accountability, rights into protection, and atrocities into assistance – to chart a path to peace out of the wreckage of war. There are many different stories behind the data, but they all tell the same truth: it is not that international law is inadequate, but that it is inadequately respected and enforced.

Indeed, the report is a litany of broken bodies, broken lives, and broken laws. In every violation, it records the broken promise that even wars have limits, and international law will shield civilians from the effects of hostilities.

So let us ask, can civilians and survivors count on this Council:

  • In Haiti, where gang-rape is rampant as a tool of territorial control and collective punishment; where children have been raped in front of their family members, including three boys aged between 9 and 12 years, who were raped alongside their mother and grandmother.
  • Or in Sudan, where women and girls have been raped in streets and public squares and continue to be sexually assaulted based on ethnic identity, with racial slurs and hate speech being used to dehumanize victims during RSF attacks. This has left survivors and children born of rape facing rejection and abandonment, while the humanitarian system is depleted of resources.
  • In eastern DRC, where a 20-year-old woman was abducted by an armed group, held for several months, and raped repeatedly until she contracted HIV.
  • Or in Myanmar, where a woman was raped during a military raid, and escaped the soldiers only to encounter another cruel reality: closed clinics, harassed health workers, and the stark choice between suffering in silence or risking retaliation.
  • In Ukraine, where hundreds of cases of CRSV have been verified, including that of a Prisoner of War who suffered years of sexual torture after his capture in 2022, until his release in 2025.
  • In Israel, where a woman who was held as a hostage by Hamas, in harrowing conditions, described multiple instances of sexual violence upon her release in January 2025.
  • Or in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where male Palestinian detainees have suffered severe physical injuries following sexual violence, often without receiving medical treatment.

These crimes occur at the intersection of dehumanization and impunity. We live in an era that everyday tests what it means to be human and humane. Instead of enforcing norms, we are allowing brutality to be normalized. Instead of defending lifesaving progress, we are defunding lifesaving programmes. Instead of punishing these crimes, we see increased persecution of those who dare to denounce them. Eighty years ago, this Organization was founded to replace the law of force with the force of law. We cannot afford to allow an inversion of these hard-won values, whereby human rights, equality, and respect for diversity are disparaged, and institutions built over decades are dismantled overnight.

There are many matters that are difficult for the nations of this world, and the members of this Council, to agree on – but ending sexual violence in conflict should not be one of them. Indeed, we have the solemn promise of this Council to act, expressed in no less than six specific resolutions. We now need sustained political resolve and resources to make this real, and close protection, assistance, and accountability gaps.

I wish to highlight three key recommendations set out in the report, as a roadmap to strengthen our collective response:

  • Firstly, the integrated architecture unanimously created by this Council is needed more urgently than ever. This includes Women’s Protection Advisers (WPAs), who convene the Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements as an evidence-base for action and anchor our engagements with parties to conflict for preventive measures. Though mandated in all relevant conflict-affected settings, WPAs are currently deployed in just five of the contexts covered in this report, down from nine at the time of its publication. It is critical to ensure that mandate authorizations and renewals of UN Missions, as well as Mission drawdowns and transitions, include provisions on addressing CRSV and accelerating the deployment of WPAs, in line with Resolution 2467 (2019).
  • Secondly, sustained investment in multisectoral services is essential to provide an enabling environment for survivors to report and seek redress, notably through our CRSV Multi-Partner Trust Fund. The interagency coordination network, UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, which I Chair, has been truly transformativein bringing these issues into focus through advocacy, knowledge-building, and joint, catalytic operations in the field. Through some 70 life-changing projects, spanning 20 conflicts, UN Action has reached thousands of survivors across Ukraine, the DRC, South Sudan, Darfur, Somalia, and elsewhere, who were once invisible and inaccessible. These projects have harnessed digital technology, for safe and confidential referrals, as well as making use of mobile clinics to reach survivors in remote and volatile regions. UN Action has collated best practices and lessons learnt into a unique global knowledge hub to inform frontline  
  • And third, we must translate zero tolerance into real consequences for those who commit, command or condone these crimes, through justice, accountability, oversight, and vetting. Too many military and political leaders operate above the law, while women and girls remain beneath the scope of its protection. Too many perpetrators are still in the corridors of power, rather than the cells of a prison. It is time to replace impunity with unity. It is time to rise above denial and deflection, selective outrage, and political narratives to take responsibility for the human suffering wrought on our watch. In terms of accountability, my Team of Experts on the Rule of Lawhas supported legislative reform, trained law enforcement officials in trauma-informed investigation and prosecution and ensured that conflict-related sexual violence is addressed in transitional justice processes. Signs of hope are evident in Colombia, where former commanders have been indicted for war crimes including sexual violence, and in Iraq, where more than 2,5oo applications for reparations have been approved under the Law on Support to Female Yazidi Survivors.

In the prevailing climate of cutbacks and setbacks, it is important to remember that however political or funding decisions may vary, the rights, needs, mandates, and laws remain. We must, likewise, remain steadfast in respecting them. I thank all the Member States and regional organizations that have shown abiding support for this mandate. There are now 117 National Action Plans and 13 regional plans on Women, Peace and Security, covering more than 2 billion women and girls globally. You can count on my mandate to continue to do its part to strengthen CRSV prevention and response as a core pillar of peacebuilding.

Even after the horrors I have witnessed during nearly a decade at the helm of this mandate, I remain hopeful, inspired by the resilience of survivors and their faith in the Rule of Law. I have seen – firsthand – survivors become leaders, isolation become solidarity, reparations become a reality, and courage outlast cruelty. Yet I also know that international law is not self-executing. It requires moral clarity and political courage to realize it in practice, not one day, but right now. The UN Charter and the Women, Peace and Security agenda are our last, best hope for a better world, where bodies are no longer used and abused as battlefields, and innocent civilians can sleep, not under the shadow of violence, but under the cover of justice.

Thank you.