Sexual violence in conflicts surged by 25% last year, with the highest numbers reported in the Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan, according to a U.N. report released Thursday.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual report recorded more than 4,600 survivors of sexual violence in 2024, with armed groups responsible for the majority of attacks and some perpetrated by government forces. Guterres cautioned that U.N.-verified figures likely underestimate the true global scale of these crimes.
The report’s blacklist identifies 63 government and non-government actors across a dozen countries suspected of committing or enabling rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict.
More than 70% of the entities listed have appeared on the report’s annex for five years or longer without taking meaningful steps to curb the violence, Guterres said, underscoring persistent impunity.
For the first time, the report includes two parties that have been notified the U.N. has “credible information” that could put them on next year’s blacklist if they don’t take preventive action: Israel’s military and security forces, over allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinians, primarily in prisons and detention facilities, and Russian forces and affiliated armed groups against Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, who circulated a letter Tuesday from Guterres about the country’s forces being put on notice, said the allegations “are steeped in biased publications.”
Russia’s U.N. mission had no comment on the secretary-general’s warning.
The 34-page report said “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced marriage and other forms of sexual violence. The majority of victims are women and girls.
“In 2024, proliferating and escalating conflicts were marked by widespread conflict-related sexual violence, amid record levels of displacement and increased militarization,” Guterres said. “Sexual violence continued to be used as a tactic of war, torture, terrorism and political repression, while multiple and overlapping political, security and humanitarian crises deepened.”
The U.N. said women and girls were attacked in their homes, on roads and while trying to earn a living, with victims ranging in age from 1 to 75. Reports of summary executions of victims after rape persisted in Congo and Myanmar.
In an increasing number of places, armed groups “used sexual violence as a tactic to gain and consolidate control over territory and lucrative natural resources,” the report said.
Women and girls perceived to be associated with rival armed groups were targeted with sexual violence in the Central African Republic, Congo and Haiti, it said.
In detention facilities, sexual violence was perpetrated “including as a form of torture,” reportedly in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
“Most of the reported incidents against men and boys occurred in detention, consistent with previous years, and included rape, threats of rape and the electrocution and beating of genitals,” the report said.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic documented cases of rape, gang rape, forced marriage and sexual slavery affecting 215 women, 191 girls and seven men.
In mineral-rich eastern Congo, the peacekeeping mission documented nearly 800 cases last year, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, “often accompanied by extreme physical violence,” the report said.
The number of cases involving the M23 rebel group, now controlling the main city of Goma, rose from 43 in 2022 to 152 in 2024.
In Sudan, where civil war is raging, groups providing services to victims of sexual violence recorded 221 rape cases against 147 girls and 74 boys since the beginning of 2024, “with 16% of survivors under 5 years of age, including four one-year-olds,” the report said.
