A new United Nations report says cases of conflict-related sexual violence documented in 2024 rose by 25 percent compared with the previous year, with state and non-state actors implicated in violations across 21 countries. The annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence lists Hamas among perpetrators for the first time and warns that Israeli and Russian forces could be added next year.
According to the report, the highest number of cases was recorded in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Somalia, and South Sudan. Women and girls accounted for 92 percent of victims. Victims ranged in age from one to 75.
“These alarming figures do not reflect the global scale and prevalence of these crimes,” the Office of the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said. The report says many incidents involved severe physical abuse, including summary executions. Survivors and children conceived through wartime rape often face social rejection and prolonged economic hardship.
“The highest number of cases was reported in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Somalia, and South Sudan,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. In eastern Congo’s Kivu, health workers treated more than 17,000 victims over five months last year as fighting between Congolese forces and M23 rebels intensified, according to the report.
Secretary-General António Guterres added Hamas to the report’s annex of parties credibly suspected of conflict-related sexual violence. The listing draws on UN-verified information indicating reasonable grounds to believe that some hostages taken to Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, and that such crimes also occurred on October 7, 2023, in at least six locations.
Guterres also wrote to Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, that he is “putting Israeli armed and security forces on notice for potential listing in the next reporting cycle, due to significant concerns of patterns of certain forms of sexual violence that have been consistently documented by the United Nations.”
The letter cites “credible information of violations by Israeli armed and security forces, perpetrated against Palestinians in several prisons, a detention center and military base.”
Danon called the allegations “baseless accusations,” and said the UN should “focus on the horrific war crimes committed by Hamas and the immediate release of all the hostages.”
This year’s annex names 63 state and non-state parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence in armed conflict.
Newly listed actors include Résistance pour un Etat de Droit (RED) Tabara in the DRC for a mass rape in 2024, and in Libya the Deterrence Agency for Combating Organized Crime and Terrorism, the Department for Combating Illegal Migration, and the non-state Internal Security Agency.
A Security Council session on conflict-related sexual violence is scheduled for Aug. 19. Patten said prevention is the goal: “We owe survivors more than solidarity; we owe them a life of dignity, and effective and decisive action to prevent and eradicate these crimes.”
