Over the past 20 years, sexual violence against women and girls has become a weapon of every war:

• As many as 50,000 women and girls were raped during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• During conflicts in Uganda and Sierra Leone, thousands of young girls and women were raped, kidnapped, and forced into sexual slavery.
• Rape is rampant in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is still being used as a weapon of war, a tactic used to terrorise, destroy and humiliate communities.

Women and girls are raped systematically, every day, in every conflict, in every region, across the world.

How Can You Help Stop Violence Against Women and Girls?

The International Rescue Committee needs your help in the long-standing fight against sexual violence against women and girls as a weapon of war.

We need you to sign a petition that the IRC will present to the presidency of the EU.

The aim is to collect enough signatures to prod the European Commission into action - but also to show Members of the European Parliament that violence against women is an issue of concern to citizens across Europe.

The fight against sexual violence must become a top policy and funding priority for the European Union.

We Need Your Help!

To call on the European Union to:

• Make ending violence against women and girls in conflict zones a top priority of its foreign policy and development assistance;
• Provide specific funding for international programmes that tackle violence against women;
• Make progress on combating violence against women and girls an indicator of human rights performance when assessing relations with affected countries.

Take action now to make your voice heard – join our fight to end violence against women and girls.

Please sign the petition. Thank you for making a difference!

What else can you do? Distribute the flyer!

What is the IRC doing against sexual violence?