The nascent years of Stand Speak Rise Up!, the platform launched by in the spring of 2019, have been marked by the covid pandemic. “We’re a young association, and fundraising was not easy in that time,” the Grand Duchess said in a recent interview with Delano that will be published in full in our November edition.
Nevertheless, the association, which aims to give a voice to the victims of sexual violence as a weapon of war as well as provide concrete help, has achieved much in that short time.
The Grand Duchess says she is “very proud”, for instance, that a UN resolution was passed in 2019 at the initiative of Pramila Patten, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict (who is also interviewed in Delano’s November edition). Resolution 2467 strengthens justice and accountability, and calls for a survivor-centred approach in the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence.
Access to lawyers
Another achievement of Stand Speak Rise Up! is giving the means to victims “to have access to trusted international lawyers who know specifically this problematic and know how to defend these women is a concrete action,” the Grand Duchess asserts. A concrete example of this was the recent ruling by a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina to grant children born of rape in war legal recognition. Today, there are between 2,000 and 4,000 children born out of that war.
We heard that women in Ukraine were being raped in great numbers by Russians, and that was a big change…everybody realised that this is going on today and only a few hours away from Luxembourg…
That case was fought by innovative legal group Trial International, jointly with the association Forgotten Children of the War. Philip Grant, executive director of Trial International, is one of the scientific committee members of Stand Speak Rise Up!
Tragically, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also sparked a change in awareness of the problem of violence as a weapon of war and in interest for the association. “We heard that women in Ukraine were being raped in great numbers by Russians, and that was a big change. Because all of a sudden, everybody realised that this is going on today and only a few hours away from Luxembourg, or Paris or London or Frankfurt. It really brought the subject home.”
Reliant on goodwill
To enhance awareness and collect more funds, Stand Speak Rise Up! will hold a gala event at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, on 15 October. Hosted by royal commentator Stéphane Bern and actress, screenwriter, comedian and film producer Charlotte de Turckheim, guests include experts such as Pramila Patten and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Denis Mukwege, whose peerless work in “repairing” the internal physical damage caused by rape at his Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was what inspired the Grand Duchess to launch the association in the first place.
Local artists that the Grand Duchess particularly likes, such as designer Anelore Baillardran Prats, calligrapher Nicolas Ouchenir and painter Pablo Elizaga, are also among the guests.
“We rely very much on goodwill, which we find,” the grand duchess says. “For example, the Hôtel du Palais put their facilities at our disposition, for which we were so grateful.”
And, the grand duchess explains, donors at the event will learn exactly what their contributions are being used for. “Most organisations will invite you to a fundraising evening and they will tell you it is for their association, and you have to trust them. We’re going to go further. This is for Stand Speak Rise Up! but precisely for a project in Congo, for a project in Ukraine, for this specific project that helps women to report rape and so forth.”
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Bibliothèques Sans Frontières initiative
Meanwhile, on Thursday Patten and Patrick Weil, president and founder of Bibliothèques Sans Frontières in France, announced a partnership that will focus on the deployment of modern technologies to implement initiatives in support of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, their families, and communities. The partnership will make use of BSF’s Ideas Box, a transformational mobile multimedia centre that can serve as a safe space for creativity, innovation, and healing.
Patten praised BSF’s use of “innovative tools” to support her office “in its efforts to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence with a survivor-centered approach.”
Weil was also keen to stress that the partnership was an honour and commitment for Bibliothèques Sans Frontières. “It is intolerable to see the extent to which sexual violence persists in conflicts around the world. We are determined to put all of our expertise at the service of this urgent and necessary fight", Weil said in a statement.
The full interview with Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, as well as Natalie Gerhardstein’s talk with Pramila Patten, can be read in the November edition of Delano magazine, published on 21 October.