UN reports 25 per cent rise in conflict-related sexual violence in 2024

The UN reports a 25 per cent rise in sexual violence during conflicts in 2024, with over 4,600 survivors documented. Armed groups carry out most abuses, while Israel and Russian forces are warned over allegations of violations against detainees.

United Nations: Sexual violence in conflicts worldwide increased by 25 per cent last year, with the highest number of cases in the Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, Somalia, and South Sudan, according to a UN report.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual report said more than 4,600 people survived sexual violence in 2024, with armed groups carrying out the majority of the abuse, but some by government forces. He stressed that the UN-verified figures don’t reflect the global scale and prevalence of these crimes.

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The report’s blacklist names 63 government and non-government parties in a dozen countries suspected of committing or being responsible for rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict, including Hamas militants, whose attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza.

Over 70 per cent of those listed have appeared on the report’s blacklist annex for five years or more without creating steps to prevent the violence, the UN chief said.

UN warns Israel and Russia about allegations

For the first time, the report includes two parties that have been notified the UN has “credible information” that could put them on next year’s blacklist if they don’t take preventive actions: Israel’s military and security forces over allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinians primarily in prisons and detention, and Russian forces and affiliated armed groups against Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon, who circulated a letter Tuesday from Guterres about the country’s forces being put on notice, said the allegations “are steeped in biased publications.”

“The UN must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” he said.

Russia’s UN mission said it had no comment on the secretary-general’s warning.

The 34-page report said “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilisation, forced marriage, and other forms of sexual violence. The majority of victims are women and girls.

“In 2024, proliferating and escalating conflicts were marked by widespread conflict-related sexual violence, amid record levels of displacement and increased militarization,” Guterres said. “Sexual violence continued to be used as a tactic of war, torture, terrorism and political repression, while multiple and overlapping political, security and humanitarian crises deepened.”

The toll of sexual violence in conflict

The UN says women and girls were attacked in their homes, on roads, and while trying to earn a living, with victims ranging in age from 1 to 75. Reports of summary executions of victims after rape persisted in Congo and Myanmar, it said.

In an increasing number of places, the report said armed groups “used sexual violence as a tactic to gain and consolidate control over territory and lucrative natural resources.”

Women and girls perceived to be associated with rival armed groups were targeted with sexual violence in the Central African Republic, Congo, and Haiti, it said.

In detention facilities, the report said sexual violence was perpetrated “including as a form of torture,” reportedly in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.

“Most of the reported incidents against men and boys occurred in detention, consistent with previous years, and included rape, threats of rap,e and the electrocution and beating of genitals,” the report said.

UN report details where abuse is occurring. The UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic documented cases of rape, gang rape, forced marriage, and sexual slavery affecting 215 women, 191 girls, and seven men.

In mineral-rich eastern Congo, the peacekeeping mission documented nearly 800 cases last year, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriage, “often accompanied by extreme physical violence,” the report said. The number of cases involving the M23 rebel group, now controlling the main city Goma, rose from 43 in 2022 to 152 in 2024, it said.

In Sudan, where civil war is raging, the report said groups providing services to victims of sexual violence recorded 221 rape cases against 147 girls and 74 boys, “with 16 per cent of survivors under five years of age, including four one-year-olds.”