Why Duchess is determined to expose darkest horrors of war

Telegraph

08-06-2025

The Duchess of Edinburgh would like to be put out of a job.
'It's a privilege,' she says of her work with victims of sexual violence in war. 'I just wish it would get less.'
Saying 'the stories never get any easier and they never change', she adds of her travel to conflict zones around the world: 'It doesn't seem to stop.'
The Duchess is speaking as she visits the Imperial War Museum's first exhibition about the untold stories of war.
From Second World War child evacuees to Ukrainian women today, she sees six rooms of evidence, first-hand testimonies and photographs that detail how rape has been, and still is, used as a weapon of war.
'We have to help people to understand that they [victims] are not the ones who have the shame, they are not the ones whose lives should be destroyed,' the Duchess says.
'We have to do better.'
Her visit to the exhibition, Unsilenced, comes ahead of International Day to End Sexual Violence in Conflict on June 19.
And it follows Sophie's trips to Kosovo, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chad to hear from rape survivors and their children.
In October 2024, she became the first member of the Royal family to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
The war in Europe, the Duchess says, has brought sexual violence 'into stark reality' for the public in Britain.
'A lot more people are more aware ... because suddenly it's happened where people can suddenly see it and it's more related to them,' she said.
'Suddenly it's being brought into sharp focus. When we have a conflict in Europe, it brings it into stark reality but we must not forget conflicts in Africa.
'They are just as important. Sometimes I just feel, sadly, that Sudan and the DRC, they get slightly swept aside.'
'People can only cope with a certain amount,' she adds. 'What do you do? What's the most important conflict? They all seem to get drowned out.
'It's very hard so we have to keep going. Exhibitions like these are very important. Just to bring it to the wider awareness of the public.'
It is a mission that has been close to her heart for some time. It is also one of the most challenging topics imaginable for a member of the Royal family.
When she became a full time working Royal in 2002, the Duchess tried several routes to find patronages and causes that she could get her teeth into.
She leaned into a natural interest in gender equality, founded the Women's Network Forum in 2014, and was drawn into events for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, meeting Angelina Jolie, its co-founder, at the Royal Festival Hall in 2018.
'Profoundly moved by the things she has learnt'
The following year, when Sophie, then the Countess of Wessex, announced she would be working formally with the organisation, a Palace source told The Telegraph: 'This a new strand of work for HRH, something she has been slowly stepping into and engaging with over recent months.
'She has been profoundly moved by the things she's learnt.'
There was something about the topic that 'just clicked for her', another insider says now.
'It's a very genuine thing she's really committed herself to. She wants to be of use, to draw attention to something that will make a difference.
'She's met a lot of survivors over the years and carries that with her.'
It is not an easy subject to have chosen. The extreme graphic details the Duchess hears are difficult to share with the world; the impact and progress of her campaigning impossible to measure as wars continue to rage around the world.
Practical and operating largely under the radar – her engagements are not covered by the press generally – it does not seem to particularly deter her.
She speaks carefully (thanks to her previous career in PR) but confidently: in 2019, addressing the Commonwealth women's affairs ministers meeting in Kenya, she called for a ' sustainable and feminist peace '.
At the exhibition, she asks repeatedly whether victims of sexual violence have been consulted in putting the exhibit together.
'The stories bring you to your knees'
The Duchess has described how she was left 'completely and utterly floored' the first time she heard testimony from a survivor.
Until then, she told the BBC in 2021, she had read about it in 'very dry' briefing notes and statistics. 'It was truly upsetting,' she said of hearing directly from women. 'But I feel in a way it was really important to hear the actual reality.'
'When you hear someone's story of gang rape it absolutely brings you to your knees. I had tears falling off my face when she was talking to me. I was completely silent but I was in floods of tears.'
Every story, she says, lives with her.
'It seems so enormous. I was thinking how on earth am I going to be able to make even a tiny bit of difference. I have to concentrate on one foot in front of the other,' she said.
At the Imperial War Museum, the Duchess wears her heart on her sleeve.
She snorts at the differing advice for men and women for preventing the spread of venereal disease during the Second World War (the women always to blame), and wryly declares the use of paintings of half-naked women being allowed on RAF airplane noses up until 2007 'surprising'.
Shown papers relating to the abuse of Second World War evacuees and told about British, French and US soldiers also being known to have committed abuse – albeit not state-sanctioned – the Duchess agreed: 'It's not just happening to foreigners by foreigners.
'It is endemic around the world, which is why it's such an important thing to recognise and address.'
The exhibition contains items from the First World War onwards. The Duchess was shown sections relating to the 'Comfort Women Corps' in the Second World War in Japan, the Yazidi women enslaved by Islamic State in 2014, and the treatment of Bosnian children born of sexual violence in conflict.
'Did you work with survivors?' she asked Helen Upcraft, the lead curator, and Jack Davies, the exhibitions manager. 'Obviously it's about them, their voices are important. We don't want to talk about them without them feeling they have had representation and the ability to tell their own stories.'
The small show has been developed alongside four NGOs: Women for Women International, All Survivors Project, Free Yezidi Foundation and Waging Peace.
Artwork ends exhibition on positive note
'This is such a huge subject, so many have been and are being affected by it,' the Duchess added, hearing that the exhibition wa designed to end on a positive note, with a traditional cloth artwork called Peace by Piece, created by Sudanese women.
'It's very easy to leave people feeling utterly depressed and bereft.'
She suggests that there could be a wall or table at the end for visitors to write their final thoughts or messages on.
Told that the exhibition has been seen by university students, but is for over-16s only due to its content, the Duchess agrees: 'You don't want to traumatise them.'
Nevertheless, she suggests, the explanation of power dynamics could be useful when 'they're trying to navigate themselves through school and all the social media'.
'Hopefully they won't ever come into contact with this sort of thing, but there is a chance that they might and having that wider knowledge is important,' she added.
Congratulated for her own work with survivors through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, Sophie said: 'If only we could do ourselves out of a job.'
In October last year, The Telegraph travelled with the Duchess to the refugee camp of Adré on the Chad-Sudan border, where she met victims of rape and torture living as refugees.
The Duchess, who was seen in tears after leaving a tent where she spoke to women about all they had suffered, said: 'What they have all witnessed is complete atrocity.'
In April 2024, she travelled to Ukraine to meet survivors of sexual violence, and discussed how to support them with Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Zelenska, Ukraine's president and first lady.
She is intending to make further trips overseas to highlight the issue, but no destinations have been confirmed yet.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who has travelled widely with the Duchess to areas including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has praised her ability to make people feel at ease and her 'deeply human personal skills'.
Speaking in Nepal towards the end of a six-day Royal tour in February, the Duchess said of victims of human trafficking and sexual violence: 'If people in my position don't champion people like that, they have very little voice.
'And to change behaviours you have to keep banging the drum. So I keep on banging the drum.'