Your Excellency,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am honoured to address this Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women and thank the Government of the People’s Republic of China for hosting this important event. It offers a vital platform to renew our shared commitment to the rights, dignity, and safety of women and girls.
For the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the wider Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, protecting the dignity of people affected by armed conflict demands that rights and protections granted under international humanitarian law are under all circumstances equally and impartially implemented. This is essential for sustainable peace, gender equality, and women’s development.
Thirty years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, its call for bold action on women’s rights remains urgent. Two of the Platform’s critical areas—violence against women and women in armed conflict—speak directly to the ICRC’s humanitarian mission.
About 130 armed conflicts are being fought around the world today. This is twice as many as we saw 15 years ago. As an organization working on the frontlines of conflict across the world, we see firsthand the disproportionate toll of armed conflict on women and girls because the rules of war are not better respected.
Conflicts are robbing women and girls of privacy, health care, education and livelihoods. Futures are being irreversibly altered and families torn apart. Sexual violence is used as an insidious tactic of war, seeding trauma that reverberates for generations.
The rules of war provide strong protections, including prohibitions on rape, sexual slavery, and the obligation to protect pregnant women, detainees, and displaced persons. These rules must be respected. Upholding them preserves dignity and humanity in war.
In 2024, China and the ICRC, together with Brazil, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa, launched the Global Initiative for humanitarian law to strengthen compliance with the rules of war. To date, 90 states have joined. At the UN High-Level Week, these states called for more investment in international humanitarian law and its integration into national systems.
We deeply value China’s constructive role in this initiative. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a champion of global governance, China can help ensure humanitarian norms are upheld and women’s protection prioritized.
The Global IHL Initiative and China’s Global Governance Initiative share principles of a fair, inclusive, and people-centred international system. Together, they foster conditions where the protection and empowerment of women in conflict can be advanced.
Excellencies, colleagues,
Working hand in hand with the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of our Movement, the ICRC is committed to advancing these goals. Every day, we witness women’s courage as they rebuild lives.
Let us act boldly and urgently, with unity and resolve, to fulfill the vision of the Beijing Platform and secure a safer, more equitable future for all.
Thank you.
