In February, I went to the Chad-Sudan border, and to the refugee camp there in Adré. There are mostly women and children there.
One of the young women said to me that most of the women that she knew in the camp had suffered what she called “bad violence” on the way there.
But hardly anyone spoke about it because of the shame and the fear. And that was how she described her experiences and her friends’ experiences.
And survivors of sexual assaults, violence, of rape used as a weapon of war, will bear those scars and face that trauma for very many years to come. And yet for too long the rest of the world has looked away. We must not and we cannot do that.
One of the things that we want to do as part of the campaign that we’re launching today is to make sure that we can shine a spotlight on the experiences of the women of Sudan, shine a spotlight on the violence against women and girls across the world that too often is holding half the population back.
My colleague Jess Phillips, who many of you will know, will stand in the House of Commons each year around International Women’s Day and read out the names of every woman murdered by a man in Britain over the past twelve months.
This year, there were 95 names. It took Jess five minutes to read all of them.
But the unbearable truth is this: that if Jess read out all of the names of the women all over the world murdered by men, it would take her three days.
And that’s why we need global action to tackle this crisis, and a global coalition to do so.
Violence against women and girls happens everywhere – in homes, online, in conflict and displacement. But no society can thrive when so many of the population are unable to live in freedom from fear.
And that’s why I’ve made advancing the rights of women and girls a foreign policy priority for the UK.
It’s why I’m pleased to announce today a new International Strategic Framework on Women and Girls, that looks at economic participation and equality, at political participation and equality, at education, healthcare, and the opportunities for the future that we want to see championed all over the world, but too often where we have seen progress go backwards.
But we know that, underpinning all opportunities for the future, we need safety and security as the bedrock.
And that’s why domestically here in the UK, we have set an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
But it’s also why we want that mission to be global, it’s why we want to work internationally because we know we cannot meet this challenge alone.
And so today – alongside the governments of Australia, Brazil, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Jamaica, Morocco, South Africa and Spain – we are launching a new International Coalition on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls.
A historic coalition showing a genuine global partnership to turn commitment into action.
We will develop national pledges as coalition members, setting out what each of us will be doing at home and internationally, based on what we know works. And so we can share together and learn from each other.
Part of the reason I wanted to do this is because a year ago I went to Spain to see the work that they were doing, and the leading work that they had been doing on tackling domestic abuse in Spain over the last twenty years. That work has inspired some of the work that we are doing here in the UK.
But then I was really pleased that the Spanish Minister for International Cooperation was able to come with me yesterday to see some of the work that the police in London are doing in order to tackle violence against women and girls and domestic abuse here.
Each country able to learn from each other about where they are getting results, and how, because it is the partnerships that we build abroad that make us stronger at home.
So we will also co-create a new campaign that leads to tangible action, based on the evidence of what works, we will tackle violence in all its forms – online and offline, in conflict and in peace – and we will build towards a global summit next year, while the UK is chairing the G20, designed to bring together governments, business, civil society and survivors to turn momentum into lasting change.
And crucially, this campaign must be grounded in lived experience.
Because solutions designed without survivors are never solutions at all.
So we will also establish a Survivor Advisory Board, to shape this work, challenge our assumptions and help make a real difference.
But ultimately this campaign will only succeed if it feels like something we are building together. Women and men across the world coming together.
Ending Violence against Women and Girls is about unlocking human potential, building stronger economies, and delivering lasting peace.
And so this campaign is a call for us to work together and move faster.
Because in doing so, we can build societies that are safer, and fairer, and better for everyone.
