Rachael Grimes

Major Rachael Grimes is an army officer of the British Armed Forces who has worked for two decades, many times in war and conflict areas in Europe, Asia and Africa. She developed expertise in army air transport and the role and contribution of woman in the Counter Insurgency Operations of the British Army. She worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (MONUSCO's), initially in the capacity of an Intelligence Planning Officer and later as the UN Force Commander's Child Protection and Gender Field Advisor.

During the 2016 Queen’s birthday honours, on 11 June 2016 she was one of the recipients of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath As Knight Commander.

Biography
Grimes, from the United Kingdom, studied at the Bristol University and received Master of Science (MSC) degree in International Relations and Gender, during 2012. Then, during her 20 years of service with the British Armed forces she worked in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. During 2014, she initially worked with the United Nations as an Intelligence Planning Officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo and later in the role of the UN Force Commander's Child Protection and Gender Field Adviser. Following this experience, in May 2015 in a special training workshop for the female military officers (32 officers from 24 countries attended) conducted by UN Women, in association with the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in India she gave a lecture stating: "All of the militaries in the world are male-dominated; the majority of the leadership is male-dominated...So a young woman thinking of this career may be put off because there doesn’t seem to be an infrastructure in place to support her".

Grimes also gave a seminar explaining the difficulties encountered in handling issues of sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the experience she gained from "mainstreaming gender to 200,000 soldiers under the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (MONUSCO's) mandate". This mandate was part of the "international policy framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security". This policy also represented United Kingdom's binding adherence to enhance its presence internationally to stop and to act on sexual violence and larger issues related to gender aspects; this policy is integral to the United Kingdom's "National Action Plan on Women, Peace & Security and the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative" (PSVI).

During the International Women’s Day celebrations held in March 2016, Grimes designed and conducted training programmes to train Kurdish security forces in Northern Iraq, with a view to facilitate rendering better assistance to civilians affected by sexual abuses during the battle in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh).