Sophie Wessex has returned to her royal duties – and she's making history in the process!
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The Countess – who has been married to Prince Edward since 1999 – has left her husband and their two children for a very special overseas visit.
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Sophie, 57, has become the first member of the royal family to travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Buckingham Palace confirmed this week. She is visiting at the request of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
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The Palace said on Monday that the trip will focus on addressing the devastating impact of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict while supporting and empowering survivors and tackling the stigma they face.
Sophie speaking to a sexual violence victim in Sierra Leone
Sophie is being accompanied by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister's special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict.
It is a subject close to Sophie's heart. She has campaigned on the issue for many years, travelling to countries including Kosovo, Lebanon, South Sudan and Sierre Leone to meet women peacebuilders and survivors of sexual violence.
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It's believed that the visit has been in the works for some time, and was planned several months before the death of the Queen on 8 September.
The decision was made before the death of the Queen
In June last year, Sophie spoke about the profound impact of hearing accounts of sexual violence first hand, admitting she had been "in floods of tears".
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"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.
Sophie has spoken of her heartbreak speaking to victims
"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."
Sophie further shared that she "was completely and utterly floored" when she first met a survivor. She was attending an event and expected to meet ot.hers who were working to help women. Instead, she met women who had experienced sexual violence firsthand.
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"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.
The Countess has long been a campaigner
"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."
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