Women, Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
In August, the Security Council will hold its annual open debate on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), which will be titled: “Identifying innovative strategies to ensure access to life-saving services and protection for survivors of sexual violence in conflict zones”. Amid escalating armed conflicts in which critical healthcare infrastructure is often destroyed or deliberately targeted by warring parties, it appears that Panama, the Council president in August, intends to focus the open debate on the need to ensure non-discriminatory access to quality multi-sectoral services for CRSV survivors. The open debate will also emphasise the importance of sustaining efforts to prevent, monitor and respond to CRSV in the aftermath of transitions and drawdowns of UN peace operations, including through support to community-based organisations and women human rights defenders.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten and a woman civil society representative are the anticipated briefers. No formal product is expected.
Key Recent Developments
The Secretary-General’s annual reports define CRSV as “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict”. According to the reports, CRSV “also encompasses trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual violence and/or exploitation, when committed in situations of conflict”.
This year’s report on CRSV will cover the period from January to December 2024 and will provide the basis for the August open debate. The report is expected to document over 4,500 UN-verified cases which, according to remarks delivered by Patten at the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict in June, represents a 20 percent increase from 2023, which was itself a 50 percent increase from 2022. This figure is understood to be an undercount of CRSV cases as it reflects incident reports, rather than the number of actual incidents. The vast majority of cases documented in the report (91 percent) affected women and girls.
Several situations on the Security Council’s agenda are likely to be discussed in this year’s annual report on CRSV. As mandated by resolution 1960 adopted in 2010, this year’s report will again include an annex listing “parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict on the agenda of the Security Council”.
With consistently elevated numbers of UN-verified incidents of CRSV, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been a recurring focus of the Secretary-General’s annual reports and is expected to register the highest number of verified cases in 2024. According to the summary letter of the 26 March meeting of the Informal Expert Group (IEG) on women, peace and security (WPS) on the situation in the DRC, in 2024 the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) documented 823 CRSV incidents, affecting 416 women, 391 girls, 7 boys, and 9 men. Non-state actors were responsible for 625 of the 823 documented cases in 2024. The IEG summary letter noted positive steps taken by the DRC authorities to address CRSV perpetrated by state actors, with “hundreds of prosecutions” of members of the Congolese armed forces (FARDC). It also stressed that adequate funding to support the UN in the DRC is essential for the organisation to continue to be able to respond to “the shocking levels of sexual violence throughout the country”.
CRSV continues to be a serious concern in the context of the conflict in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In 2024, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented 246 cases of CRSV, affecting 140 women, 101 girls, and five men. According to the final report of the Panel of Experts on Sudan assisting the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, which analysed developments in 2024, CRSV was part of the RSF’s strategy to consolidate dominance in areas under its control, where women and girls “faced widespread sexual violence”. UN Women has also highlighted reports of attacks against women human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and humanitarian workers to “silence documentation and reporting of GBV incidents and the scale of atrocities”. Sexual and gender-based violence, including CRSV, has continued to mark the conflict in Sudan in 2025. In a 14 May press release, several UN independent experts condemned the “widespread and systematic violations” against women and girls in Sudan, including CRSV, abductions, and killings, noting that many of these violations have been attributed to the RSF. The press release reported that at least 330 cases of CRSV had been documented in 2025, with the real number likely to be significantly higher.
In response to high levels of sexual violence perpetrated by armed gangs, the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) established monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements (MARA) on CRSV in August 2024. From August to October 2024, 102 incidents committed by armed individuals and involving 123 survivors were reported under the MARA. The 2025 Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, which covers developments in 2024, verified instances of sexual violence against 566 children in Haiti (523 girls and 43 boys), the vast majority (411) being attributed to the Viv Ansanm gang coalition. A 28 March UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report on trafficked firearms and ammunitions in Haiti has noted, among other things, that the “ubiquitous presence of guns is central in the gangs’ use of violence, such as rape”. More recently, in a 4 June statement, Patten expressed grave concern at escalating levels of sexual violence in the country. Sexual violence is being used “deliberately and systematically to assert dominance and punish communities”, with survivors often assaulted in their homes or public spaces, according to her statement. Patten also warned that access to key services for survivors remains extremely limited amidst generalised insecurity, which has led to the closure of critical health facilities.
A 13 March report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, and Israel, examined sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence carried out by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023. The report documented the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across the Gaza Strip. It highlighted a “sharp increase” in sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by members of the Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers across the OPT, including cases of rape, and noted that “many acts of sexual violence it documented constitute conflict-related sexual violence”. It also highlighted “widespread and systematic abuse and sexual and gender-based violence” in Israeli detention. The report stressed that the “frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes” perpetrated across the OPT led the Commission to conclude that “sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.
The Secretary-General’s annual report on CRSV might also address the situation of the hostages held captive in Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. According to the findings of Patten’s mission to Israel and the occupied West Bank (29 January to 14 February 2024), “the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing”.
Other situations of concern that might be detailed in the Secretary-General’s report include Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Key Issues and Options
The holistic and substantive implementation of the Security Council’s resolutions on WPS remains the overarching issue.
Although dynamics on WPS at the Security Council are difficult, Council members supportive of WPS can strategise to preserve and strengthen WPS language in thematic and country-specific Council outcomes and follow up on the implementation of these decisions, in line with resolution 2242 of 2015 in which the Council decided to integrate WPS concerns “across all country-specific situations on the Security Council’s agenda”. To guide their work, Council members can use the recommendations put forward by UN Women as the IEG secretariat, as well as the recommendations presented by women civil society representatives who have briefed the Council.
The persistence of CRSV—rooted in enduring patriarchal norms and other interlocking forms of control—is an issue of serious concern. Adopted in 2019, resolution 2467 recognised that CRSV occurs on a continuum of interrelated and recurring forms of violence against women and girls. To address CRSV from a structural perspective, one option is to include in Council discussions of CRSV a focus on the theme of the continuum of violence and other intersecting forms of inequality that women and girls face both during conflict and in peacetime.
Regarding the theme of this year’s open debate, the destruction—often deliberate—of healthcare facilities during armed conflict and, more broadly, the continued erosion of international humanitarian law (IHL) are issues of concern. The Council’s failure to address this trend and facilitate a peaceful resolution to several conflict situations on its agenda has had devastating consequences for women in those contexts, with some Council members being directly involved in these conflicts or supporting the conflict parties.
Council Members could lead by example and stop transferring arms when there is a risk that weapons are used to commit serious violations of IHL, including the targeting of healthcare facilities, and acts of gender-based violence. The Council could also impose and enforce arms embargoes in these situations. If Council dynamics do not allow a collective decision on this issue, a group of Council members supportive of international law and the WPS agenda could issue a joint statement announcing their decision to stop arms transfers and specifying that the decision was taken in response to serious violations of IHL and acts of gender-based violence.
During the open debate, members could also highlight the importance of guaranteeing sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights to all survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
Against the backdrop of the UN80 initiative, a reform agenda aimed at streamlining the UN in response to funding constraints which is expected to result in consolidation and austerity measures, Council members could continue to support the deployment of women’s protection advisers and gender advisers in peace operations, as well as in transition processes from peacekeeping operations to special political missions and country teams. Further options include strengthening the gender expertise informing the work of sanctions committees, inviting Patten to share information with these committees, and enhancing alignment between the parties identified in the annual report on CRSV and those designated under sanctions regimes.
It seems that a combination of factors—including resource constraints, decisions on politically sensitive listings, as well as reluctance from some Council members to host the meeting—contributed to the open debate being scheduled in August this year. This is the latest in the year that the annual open debate on CRSV has been held in over a decade. Given that the information contained in the report refers to the previous calendar year, Council members supportive of the WPS agenda could pursue early coordination to ensure the timely holding of the CRSV open debate in the future.
Council Dynamics
Council members’ views converge on the need to eradicate CRSV. Nevertheless, dynamics on WPS are difficult.
There have been notable changes to the US position on WPS since the start of President Donald Trump’s term on 20 January. The US has sought to remove language on WPS during negotiations, with a particular focus on references to gender. Although the US signed on to the Shared Commitments on WPS in 2023, so far it has not participated in any of the joint press stakeouts held by the Council members who are part of this initiative this year.
Russia has opposed the term “CRSV”, arguing that it leads to a blurring of crimes of a sexual nature that occur in peacetime and during armed conflict, therefore unduly expanding the purview of the Council’s mandate; this is an argument that most other Council members and civil society groups working on women’s rights reject. Russia has also opposed Patten’s participation in Security Council meetings.
The UK is the penholder on WPS, and the US is the penholder on CRSV. Denmark and Sierra Leone are the co-chairs of the IEG on WPS.
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 23 April 2019S/RES/2467 | This resolution recognised the need for a survivor-centred approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations. This resolution passed with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions (China and Russia). |
| 16 December 2010S/RES/1960 | This resolution requested the Secretary-General to add an annex to the annual report on conflict-related sexual violence listing conflict parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict. |
| 19 June 2008S/RES/1820 | This resolution focused on sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations, including by expressing the Council’s intention to consider the use of targeted sanctions against perpetrators. |
