Join the UK campaign against sexual violence in conflict. It’s #timetoact!

Everyone is working incredibly hard at the moment to deal with the conflict in Syria. This conflict reminds us all again that all too often we find that rape and sexual violence is used as an instrument of war, particularly against women.

Written version (continued)

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague has been mounting a major international campaign over the last year, also involving Angelina Jolie as the UN special envoy on this issue, to raise public awareness and public anger.

Mr Hague will be organising a big conference in New York shortly when all the world’s Foreign Ministers will be there, with the aim of having 100 countries adopt a major declaration making clear our rejection of the use of sexual violence against women, that there should be accountability for those who carry out this crime against humanity, and practical steps to help countries in conflict to avoid the use of sexual violence against women and children developing as part of that conflict.

French authorities are also very engaged on this, there was a big international meeting last week – the Union for the Mediterranean with Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the Women’s Affairs Minister for France in the chair, and many other countries as well.

But it’s beyond governments, and there is a real opportunity for individuals to make your voice heard in this campaign – if you look on social networking sites you will see that William Hague is mounting a major initiative called a Thunderclap campaign for as many people as possible to sign up and send tweets and Facebook updates on the 24th September to record their rejection of the use of sexual violence as an instrument of war. Please do join us.