Annual Reports of the Victims' Rights Advocate
Redefining Impact through
Voice, Assistance, and Justice
for Victims of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
The 2024–2025 Annual Report of the United Nations Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate (OVRA) highlights progress in advancing a victim?centred approach across the United Nations system, grounded in the pillars of voice, assistance, and justice. The report outlines key achievements over the past two years, identifies ongoing challenges, and sets out priority areas requiring strengthened collective action. These include supporting victims’ meaningful participation, enhancing assistance, and advancing accountability and remedies—guided by victims’ experiences, engagement with civil society, and the need for stronger action across the UN system and by Member States.
In 2023, the Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate continued to drive progress across the United Nations system toward increasing understanding and implementation of the Secretary-General’s policy of placing the rights and dignity of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse at the centre of prevention and response. This informal annual report presents the Office’s achievements in launching a system-wide training and a Statement on victims’ rights and the work of the Victims’ Rights Advocate, Senior Victims’ Rights Officers and Victims’ Rights Focal Points to secure rights for children born of sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations personnel, work which will continue along with other initiatives into 2024.
The Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate continues to make significant progress in placing the rights and dignity of victims at the centre of the United Nations response to sexual exploitation and abuse. In 2022, the Victims’ Rights Advocate and Senior Victims’ Rights Officers redoubled efforts to meet with victims of sexual exploitation and abuse and to develop best practices on the victim-centred approach with service providers and other advocates. This report presents the progress made on key projects during the year, as well as new initiatives aimed at improving access to support for victims.
It has been five years since the Secretary-General pledged to put the rights and dignity of victims at the centre of our efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations staff and related personnel. This report highlights the progress made by the Victims’ Rights Advocate in integrating a system-wide victims’ rights approach, and details the achievements of the Office and the field advocates. The Victims’ Rights Advocate is committed to increasing the number of advocates in the field, and will continue to champion the appointment dedicated full time Senior Victims’ Rights Officers, wherever they are needed, or, if that is not possible, the appointment of focal points for victims’ rights.
In 2020, a year marked by challenges, the Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate strengthened policy, advocacy and work on the ground to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations staff and related personnel. This report sets out the activities and achievements of the Victims’ Rights Advocate and Advocates in the field in 2020, the challenges that remain, and a roadmap of activities for the year ahead.
In the time since the Office of the Victims’ Rights Advocate became fully operational, it has engaged in many activities to deliver on the Secretary-General’s pledge to put victims at the centre of all United Nations efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse by its personnel. Concrete results for victims of these wrongs, as outlined in this report, were achieved in 2019, but much more must be done to ensure that appropriate resources for victim protection and assistance are available.
Annual Report 2018
In 2018, the Victims’ Rights Advocate prioritized advocacy, engagement and consultations with Member States, United Nations system, intergovernmental and regional organizations, civil society, and other stakeholders, in the field and other locations, to gather their perspectives on issues related to victims’ rights and assistance and ensure that a victim-centred approach is institutionalized and integrated in all United Nations’ activities to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse.
