Nobel Peace Prize winner Denis Mukwege has called for joint global action to help war rape victims around the world, and he thinks Croatia can contribute.

Late last year, his Mukwege Foundation started the International Reparations Initiative, a global fund for survivors of wartime sexual violence. He is trying to include as many countries as possible in the Initiative, expected to come to life this year.

With the fund for survivors, we can give the right answer to all victims of sexual violence, Mukwege told Hina in Carcavelos, Portugal, where he took part in an Estoril conference on global challenges.

Sexual violence is a weapon of war which isn’t tied to only one conflict. It’s a common tactic used around the world. Reparations are a step towards restoring dignity to survivors who usually don’t have the money to seek justice for the pain they experienced, Mukwege said.

This gynecologist from the Congo received the Nobel Peace Prize last year for physically and psychologically treating women and children raped in war conflicts in Congo over the past 20 years as well as for his fight against that form of torture.

That remains a big problem in the world. It’s a problem in Iraq, in Syria and in many states in Africa, Mukwege said.

The theme of this year’s Estoril conference, named after the tourist resort, was “Empowering Humanity: From Local to Global Justice”.

On Monday, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic spoke in defence of the equality of women in world politics and locally, saying society suffers great losses by neglecting and marginalising women.

I was impressed by how seriously the Croatian president understands the issue of women, women in Croatia, and we talked about what could be done about women victims of war rape in the world, Mukwege said.

After her address at the conference, Grabar-Kitarovic met with Mukwege at the Carcavelos Faculty of Economics. They also talked about war rapes in Croatia during the Greater Serbia aggression in the 1990s.

We shared our experiences about what happened in Croatia and other parts of the world, about ethnic cleansing. Local solutions are not enough, we need global solutions, Mukwege said.

She is really committed to this issue. This weapon of war was used in Croatia and elsewhere in the world, so we must joint forces to fight against it and to find a solution for the victims, he added.