Why the world still fails to end conflict-related sexual violence 30 years after the Beijing declaration

The adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995 was a fundamental step in developing a comprehensive international policy framework on women’s human rights and women’s protection from violence. With regard to conflict-related sexual violence, the international community was called upon to collect data on its prevalence, to conduct research on its causes and consequences, to ensure its effective prosecution, and to implement preventive measures. Yet, 30 years later, conflict-related sexual violence is as widespread as ever. In a quest for the causes of this ongoing failure to end conflict-related sexual violence and based on a review of the relevant academic and policy literature, the article evaluates the progress in the four categories, identifying persistent gaps in their implementation. To this day, accurate data on CRSV is scarce. Although research on CRSV has made significant progress and several risk and protective factors have been identified, an integrated understanding of the different phenomena remains absent. The prosecution of CRSV is still impeded by normative, cultural, and practical obstacles. And despite extensive policy efforts addressing CRSV, their practical consequences on its prevalence remain limited. The article closes with recommendations for future data collection, research, and policy efforts.