{"id":459350,"date":"2026-06-03T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/459350\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T19:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:56:17","slug":"duchess-sophie-issues-dire-warning-in-landmark-speech-i-see-no-end-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/459350\/","title":{"rendered":"Duchess Sophie issues dire warning in landmark speech – ‘I see no end’ | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Duchess of Edinburgh<\/a> declared that she \u201csees no end\u201d to sexual violence in conflict zones during an emotive Model NATO speech in Lisbon, Portugal, today.<\/p>\n

A fierce champion of gender equality<\/a> and raising awareness around the horrors of sexual violence, the Duchess, 61, addressed the room of students to speak about what she has witnessed over the last seven years she has spent focusing on the dangers women and girls face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t need to tell you that today’s world is not a happy one,\u201d she began. \u201cThe number of conflicts across so many regions around the world has been played out on a daily basis, affecting many countries either directly or indirectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Telling the students that it was \u201cgood to see men in the room\u201d and that \u201cIf you ever hear someone say there are no qualified women, disavow them of that\u201d, the Duchess proved her expertise as she spoke about the significance of women peace holders and the threats of rape and intimidation they face on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

Asked about how we can use our voices to help the cause in a Q&A session after her speech, Sophie said: \u201cThere\u2019s a variety of different ways you can amplify voices. I use my voice; I can be their voice in various forums and various settings. That is one way. You can use your voices and immediately play a part as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly before her speech, Sophie met a handful of students from Birmingham University who had developed potential responses to realistic and complex situations NATO could face across the domains of land, air and sea.<\/p>\n

Listening to their work and to how they became involved with NATO, the Duchess made a rare, politically charged comment about the wars raging around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy generation has lived through so many more years of peace than generations before,\u201d she told the youngsters.<\/p>\n

The Duchess has been a global champion for the UN\u2019s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and a supporter of the UK\u2019s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) for a number of years, and announced her commitment to both causes on International Women\u2019s Day in 2019.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, the Duke and Duchess reunited after Prince Edward spent the morning with paralympians and Portuguese representatives of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme.<\/p>\n

They had the opportunity to build drones with the aerospace company, Tekever, in Atouguia de Baleia. The couple were tasked with adding four final wings to an AR3-EVO drone before receiving a tour of a ground control station and operating the cameras on one drone after it was airborne using video game console controls.<\/p>\n

As well as being used in Ukraine<\/a>, the UK Home Office uses the drones to survey the English Channel, as well as for search and rescue and reconnaissance work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Duchess of Edinburgh declared that she \u201csees no end\u201d to sexual violence in conflict zones during an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3163,156,111,139,69,25928,3165,173580,3164,59961,412,233111],"class_list":["post-459350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-duchess-of-edinburgh","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-portugal","tag-prince-edward","tag-prince-edward-news","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-family-latest","tag-sophie","tag-sophie-wessex-royal-family-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}