The second day of the global End Sexual Violence in Conflict summit, 'Expert's Day' commenced with delegates being welcomed at the opening plenary by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the UK's Senior Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
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Baroness Warsi in her address stressed that the summit was about achieving “practical solutions” to the mass problem of sexual violence in conflict. Recounting her work as a lawyer, she said:
“Some of the most harrowing moments, were listening to the stories of women from Bosnia and Herzegovina applying for asylum in the UK.”
“We would only be told about their experiences of rape at the eleventh hour, and even then with a caveat... they did not want those stories to be repeated, did not want it to be part of their case.”
The day's keynote address was given by Zainab Bangura, Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Speaking about the lack of serious discussion about sexual violence in conflict, “history's greatest silence”, Ms Bangura said that in conditions for peace “there can no longer be amnesty or pardons” for wartime rape.
In a video message, former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, arguing that “rape and other forms of sexual violence are not inevitable in war,” said that the world should not “sit idly by” while “women's bodies become battlefields, children are mutilated and sold into sexual slavery and men are assaulted”.