UN General Assembly
2022

Sexual violence is a grave threat to justice and the fundamental rights of men, women and children throughout the world. In every corner of the globe, survivors of sexual assault are inhibited in holding perpetrators accountable and accessing empowering health, legal and economic remedies. In Sierra Leone, we have taken extensive legislative and administrative actions to address sexual and gender-based violence since my declaration of rape as a national emergency in 2019. Last year, before this Assembly, I announced that I had directed the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations to sponsor at the General Assembly a stand-alone draft resolution on access to justice for survivors of sexual violence (see A/76/PV.6). I called for global solidarity on the issue and for the United Nations to give all survivors of sexual violence the remedies that they deserve.