The Duchess of Edinburgh has spoken passionately of her campaign to highlight the plight of victims of sexual violence in conflict, saying: ‘We must do better.’ Sophie, 60, who has spoken out on the issue for years and met hundreds of survivors around the world, was visiting the UK’s first exhibition dedicated to the subject on Wednesday.

Featuring shocking stories ranging from the First World War until the present day, the royal expressed her frustration as she toured the displays at the way the issue is still swept under the carpet – and the cultural norms that give rise to the degradation of women even today.

She looked amazed when told that the British Royal Air Force didn’t ban ‘nose art’ – the drawing of scantily-clad women on the front of their fighter planes – until 2007. ‘Surprising….’ she said, clearly unimpressed and raising an eyebrow. Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict has opened at the Imperial War Museum in London and will run until November 2. 

It is a subject the duchess – who was making her visit to the exhibition ahead of International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict on June 19 – says is woefully ‘under-discussed’.

In recent years the King’s sister-in-law, who is married to his brother, Prince Edward, has travelled to current and former war zones including Chad, the Congo, Kosovo, South Chad, Lebanon and Sierra Leone.

She has devoted much of her latter working life as a royal to supporting the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and is passionate about championing gender equality.

Shocking stories of the use of rape and sexual assault as a weapon of war against both women and men have emerged from the current conflict in Ukraine, including a powerful report just weeks ago in the Daily Mail.

Sophie, dressed elegantly in a Gabriela Hearst pink silk maxi dress and Jimmy Choo heels, was keen to ensure that survivors has been consulted on the exhibition, saying: ‘This is about them, their voice matters’.

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh arriving at the ‘Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict’ at the Imperial War Museum which will run until 2 November, 2025

The Duchess of Edinburgh with curator Helen Upcraft during a visit to the Imperial War Museum’s new exhibition. Sophie looked amazed when told that the British Royal Air Force didn’t ban ‘nose art’ – the drawing of scantily-clad women on the front of their fighter planes – until 2007

Sophie visited the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for torture victims in Pristina, 2019

And she was assured their stories had been ‘integral’ to the process by exhibitions manager Jack Davies manage and curator Helen Upcraft.

‘Unsilenced’ examines how and why gender violence is perpetrated, its impact on victims and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation, with powerful testimonies from survivors and interviews with experts in the field.

The Duchess spoke movingly about a visit she had made to Kosovo in 2019 and how deeply moved she had been when speaking to women about the ‘shame and stigma’ they experienced as a result of being brutalised.

Discussing the horror of the many women who fell pregnant by their attackers, she said: ‘The stigma that is sadly placed on the women….it’s about the mothers. In so many countries they can’t even go back into the home place,’ she said.

‘I met a woman in Kosovo. A number of years ago there was a programme on what had happened [there] and the numbers they estimated of the women who had been raped. She told me how her husband had been so empathetic and he had been horrified [about the statistics] because they didn’t know. And because he had been so empathetic and saying this was just so awful that she felt brave enough to admit to him that she had been one of them. And that was the end of her marriage.

‘This is the problem. It’s the legacy. And unless we as a society help, we have to help people understand that they are not the ones who have the shame. It is not their lives who should be destroyed. We have to do better.’

Sophie was also shown displays of wartime propaganda, which can itself create an atmosphere where sexual violence can occur.

This includes the sexual slavery of the ‘Comfort Women Corps’ in the Second World War, the state-sanctioned violence against Yazidi women and girls by ISIS in 2014, as well as the Soviet Red Army in Berlin in 1945 , and even the US treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2004.

Sophie arrived at the Imperial War Museum wearing a stunning pale pink Gabriella Hearst maxi dress and Jimmy Choo heels

The Duchess of Edinburgh with curator Helen Upcraft visiting all the exhibits at the museum

The Duchess of Edinburgh with Waging Peace Co-Executive Director Maddy Crowther during a visit to the ‘Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict’ Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum

‘This is not just something that happens to foreigners by foreigners, this is something we all need to address,’ the duchess said.

Turning to another display on women forced to have sex for rations so that their families can survive, she added sadly: ‘It’s a way of some people staying alive.’

The duchess also looked particularly horrified at a display of drawings by Sudanese children depicting the sexual violence they had seen their mothers, sisters and even grandmothers subjected to, including a particularly shocking image of a soldier turning his eyes away in shame at what his colleague was doing. ‘It’s so vivid,’ she gasped.

Justice, she said, was a perennial problems for victims.

‘It’s a tiny, tiny scratch on the surface…The issue of prosecution, it’s so hard to ever get any kind of closure on any of this. To try and prosecute. Where do you start? Do you prosecute a country? A leader? Of course this does happen. But it’s important to recognise this at the highest level,’ she insisted.

Thanked for her own role in highlighting the issue, the royal added: ‘It’s a privilege. If we could all do ourselves out of a job…it would be great.’