Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess received Dr. Denis Mukwege and Dr. Esther Dingemans, Director of Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation at the Château de Berg last week for a review of his plans to prevent and combat sexual violence in times of conflict and post-conflict.
The Mukwege Foundation is developing a strategy based on two main axes. The first is to improve the provision of assistance to survivors of sexual violence in armed conflicts, in particular to improve access to care and to retributive and restorative justice, thus restoring dignified living.
The second axis revolves around the issue of state accountability in preventing and combatting sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict.
"There can be no peace consolidation and post-conflict reconstruction without taking into account the victims of sexual violence, sexual violence that is increasingly being used as a weapon of war," said the Grand Duchess at the end of the meeting.
Dr Denis Mukwege is an expert and activist in the field of sexual violence preventio, for which he was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament and the UN Human Rights Prize. The pillar of its global advocacy work is to end impunity, increase accountability of states and provide justice to victims.
The Foundation was created in 2016 with the aim of prohibiting the use of sexual violence during armed conflicts. The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess received Dr Mukwege in October last year, on the sidelines of a public conference to present his book-testimony, Advocacy for Life.
Image: Dr Mukwege with the Grand Duchess at Chateau de Berg last week. © Claude Piscitelli
