Minister Richmond calls for stronger global response to counter gender-based violence
- Foilsithe: 9 Nollaig 2025
- An t-eolas is déanaí: 9 Nollaig 2025
Minister of State for International Development and Diaspora, Neale Richmond, has marked the 20th anniversary of the Irish Consortium on Gender-Based Violence (ICGBV) by highlighting the appalling suffering of women in Sudan.
Speaking today at an event to mark the ICGBV anniversary, Minister Richmond said that the consortium had been founded in response to attacks on women in Darfur and that twenty years on women in Darfur and across Sudan continue to face systematic sexual violence.
Minister Richmond said:
"The Irish Consortium on Gender Based Violence emerged in response to crimes being committed against women in Darfur. It is heart-breaking that women and girls in Sudan today are once more experiencing violence on an unimaginable scale. In Sudan and in other conflicts around the world, sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. These crimes continue to be met with silence, impunity and a lack of accountability. It is an atrocity that is yet to provoke a proportionate international response."
Today’s event at Iveagh House marked the 20th anniversary of the ICGBV. The ICGBV is an Irish-based alliance of twelve humanitarian and development organisations, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Defence Forces, working together to eliminate GBV in international humanitarian and development settings.
Taking place on the penultimate day of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the event brought together a diverse group of stakeholders from government, the Defence Forces, the Joint Foreign Affairs Committee, civil society, academia and the private sector. It provided an opportunity to reflect on the collective achievements made by the Consortium since its inception in 2005.
Minister Richmond said:
"The creation of this consortium played an important role in placing gender equality at the heart of Ireland’s foreign policy. Gender-based violence is not inevitable. It is a choice. To perpetrate it, to look away, or to fight it. The ICGBV continues to play a vital role in strengthening Ireland’s voice around the world to create a world free from gender-based violence."
ENDS
Press Office
9 December 2025