Camilla condemns 'pandemic' of violence against women

Camilla, the Queen Consort, has warned of a "global pandemic of unit against women" and called for an extremity to these "heinous crimes".

She spoke astatine a Buckingham Palace lawsuit highlighting the menace of home maltreatment and unit against women.

Survivors of home maltreatment request to beryllium "listened to and believed", said the Queen Consort.

Campaigners astatine the lawsuit warned that the cost-of-living situation was exacerbating the problem.

This was the Queen Consort's highest-profile effort to rise consciousness astir 1 her astir idiosyncratic causes, with palace sources saying she feels "passionately" astir this issue.

It was against the inheritance of the United Nations' "16 days of activism against gender-based violence" - and during those 16 days, the Queen Consort said, constabulary figures suggested that 3,000 women would beryllium raped successful England and Wales.

"Worldwide, much than 2,000 women volition beryllium killed by a spouse oregon a subordinate of their ain family," the Queen Consort told much than 300 guests astatine the Violence Against Women and Girls reception.

Across their lifetime, she said 1 successful 3 women would look home violence.

The Queen Consort spoke of the value of remembering women who had been murdered - but besides said she had met women who showed however "victims person go victors".

She recalled a pistillate with a convulsive ex-partner who had been sent to situation - and however she was present moving to enactment others who had been surviving successful "permanent fear".

Among those attending the reception astatine Buckingham Palace were Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, Home Secretary Suella Braverman and erstwhile Spice Girl Melanie Brown, who welcomed the Queen Consort's initiative, saying it was "brave for her to springiness consciousness to thing that is somewhat inactive a taboo".

Olena Zelenska, the archetypal woman of Ukraine, warned of the intersexual unit against women that had taken spot successful her state since the Russian invasion.

Among the guests were campaigners and charities moving to enactment victims of home violence.

Sue Harper, caput of home maltreatment prevention astatine Hestia, warned that her charity's refuges were already seeing the interaction of the cost-of-living crisis: "We are acrophobic that maltreatment volition intensify and summation further. Domestic maltreatment is specified a hidden and damaging crime."

She praised the "unwavering" enactment of the Queen Consort successful highlighting the issue, and showing victims that assistance is available.

There were 2.4 cardinal adults successful England and Wales who experienced home maltreatment past year, according to transgression survey figures published past week by the Office for National Statistics.

Almost three-quarters of the victims were women, facing maltreatment that includes violence, threatening behaviour, fiscal power and coercive behaviour.

Among women, home maltreatment is highest among 25 to 39-year-olds, but for men it peaks among the over-75s.

Camilla, the Queen Consort, told her assemblage that down each the statistic were "individual stories of quality suffering and heartbreak", but added that with a affirmative intervention, "there is beingness aft abuse".

This was the archetypal authoritative lawsuit astatine which she was assisted by "Queen's companions", having ended the contented of a Queen having ladies-in-waiting successful attendance.