Sophie, Countess of Wessex Admits She Was 'in Floods of Tears' Hearing Accounts of Sexual Violence

Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Sophie, Countess of Wessex

Sophie, Countess of Wessex is speaking movingly about how she has been profoundly impacted by the personal stories of women in conflict zones.

"When you hear somebody's story of gang rape and literally physically what has happened to them, it absolutely brings you to your knees," Sophie said in a wide-ranging interview with BBC Radio 5 Live's Nada Munchetty on Wednesday. "And I had tears falling off my face as she was talking to me. I was completely silent, but I was just in floods of tears."

It's why she has made the campaign against rape and sexual violence in war a central part of her public work.

BBC The BBC's Naga Munchetty and Sophie Wessex

Sophie shared that she "was completely and utterly floored" when she first met a survivor. She was attending an event and expected to meet others who were working to help women. Instead, she met women who had experienced sexual violence firsthand.

"This lady was, I'm guessing, probably in her 70s," she recalled, "but the country I was in had conflict going back for generations, and so I wasn't sure whether or not she was going to talk to me. But all of a sudden she got up slowly and wanted to speak to me. And she opened her mouth and started to tell me exactly what had happened."

"I don't want to shock your listeners at all, but it was really upsetting, truly upsetting," she admitted. "But I feel, in a way, it was really important for me to hear the actual reality - because as much as the information that I have is written down on pieces of paper with statistics and, you know, individual statistics but more broader statistics as well, it's very dry in its nature."

Steve Parsons/PA Images via Getty Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Lady Louise and Prince Edward

The public profile of Sophie, and her husband Prince Edward has grown since Meghan Markle and Prince Harry left their frontline royal roles, and she hopes the greater spotlight on her can keep the issues she advocates to address "front and center of everybody's minds."

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But, mindful of the ongoing pandemic, she adds, "Everybody's belts are having to be tightened, and that is understandable, but as a country we also, we have morals and codes of practice and this is something that, on a moral basis, I feel very strongly that we have to keep going, keep pedaling, and I'll do my level best to keep it from slipping down the agenda."

Sophie acknowledged, "There may well be people listening who are wondering why the U.K. is supporting something like this. Well, rape and torture is a war crime, and people who perpetrate these acts have to be brought to trial. They have to atone for what they have done."

She continued, "And rape and torture is used as a weapon of war, and whilst we as a country step forward and try to assist when it comes to peace negotiations, weapons get laid down at the end of a war, but people who have been raped and tortured will carry that with them for the rest of their lives. And it doesn't just go away because a peace accord has been signed."