29/11/2024 Women@PACE
Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg was the guest of honour at a working breakfast of the Assembly’s Women@PACE group which took place in Luxembourg ahead of a meeting of the Assembly’s Standing Committee.
Her Royal Highness, in an event coinciding with the global 16 days of action against gender-based violence, began by addressing the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
She evoked the “systematic and sweeping oppression” faced by Afghan women that had reversed decades of progress, including their exclusion from all aspects of public life, and the banning of girls from education, plunging many women and children into poverty.
With many Afghan women also facing gender-based violence, including forced marriages and other forms of dehumanising treatment, the Grand Duchess concluded: “We can go as far as to say that we are spectators to a gender genocide."
"The only thing that will put a stop to this is if we raise our voices - we as women," she said. "It's not just the future of Afghan women that is at stake, but also the moral standing of the global community."
The Grand Duchess also spoke of her work to combat sexual violence in war zones - and in particular providing help to women who are the victims of rape as a weapon of war, as well as children born of rape, who are sometimes shunned in their communities.
After meeting Dr Denis Mukwege, the Congolese Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist, she decided to "give a voice" to women in this situation, organising a forum for 50 survivors from around the world and creating the "Stand Speak Rise up!" initiative to offer them advocacy, micro-financing and legal support.
She shared the personal stories of women victims who had thought of themselves as "the walking dead" but who had overcome huge challenges to begin businesses, found schools or create support networks.
"If we cannot stop wars, at least let us do everything we can to stop rape as a weapon of war," Her Royal Highness concluded.
Welcoming her, PACE Secretary General Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis described her as a "role model" for empowering women, pointing out that the second edition of the Vigdís Prize, with this very aim, was being launched today.
Around 25 women members of PACE - including from countries that have experienced sexual violence as a weapon of war, or who had worked on these issues for the Assembly - shared their experiences or put questions.
The Women@PACE group is open to women members of the Assembly - from all countries and across party lines - for informal discussion and sharing of experience from women's perspectives.
