Firstly, may I begin by thanking you, Special Representative Pramila Patten, for your ongoing work in this area. You have led this agenda with conviction, with courage and principle. I have had the honour to work with you directly, and we continue to recognize the important work of the United Nations in this respect. Thank you also to our incredible briefers. Thank you to Ms Naw Hser Hser and Nadine to you for your briefing today.
And if I may, Your Excellencies, just to put into context, when we hear from survivors at the UN Security Council, and I want you to think about this very, very carefully, they have been through the most abhorrent violation of their person - unimaginable in every sense.
Not only have they survived that particular violation of their person, their private space, as Nadine rightly said - they have survived. They are not just victims. They are survivors in the truest sense. And when we hear from survivors, be it at the UN Security Council or anywhere across the world, imagine the strength and courage and conviction of those survivors that not only have they survived, they become the most powerful of advocates on this most important agenda that we have in front of us today. So I thank again, through Nadine and through Naw, to all those courageous survivors who are doing incredible work around the world. Thank you to them. Thank you to you both for doing so much to bring global attention to the horrors of conflict-related sexual violence and to the importance and the central and pivotal responsibility of us all for supporting survivors. Your Excellencies, sexual violence must never, never be accepted as an inevitable consequence of war.
It is we, the Security Council of the United Nations, which has a special responsibility in this respect. As we reflect over the past years, over the last 15 years, it is this Council which has built a robust framework for preventing sexual violence, supporting survivors, and importantly, to bring perpetrators to justice.
And while we may note these achievements across the world, as we've heard directly today, again from the SRSG, from our expert briefers, there remains a gap, a gap between what this Council has rightly mandated and the reality which is faced by thousands of thousands of people across conflict zones: boys, girls, women and men. And this violence continues. Survivors, as we heard from Nadine, often suffer in silence and perpetrators tragically go unpunished. We need to be the Council for action, not just for talk.
We have the responsibility collectively to bridge that gap. This does mean that every one of our States, putting the Council's resolutions, which have been passed into actual living practice, ensuring that important and pivotal access to justice, and importantly providing survivors with the critical services they need to, importantly, rebuild their lives.
It means States and UN bodies incorporating that important gender perspective into our peacekeeping operations. As we've heard from our survivors directly. When someone sees a person in uniform, be it through the State or indeed through the UN, that should bring hope. That should bring an addressing of their fear, that should bring security and safety.
