Author: EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In Ukraine, allegations of sexual violence against women by Russian soldiers are mounting. In northern Ethiopia, a woman who was taken to an Eritrean Defence Forces camp was raped and infected with AIDS by 27 soldiers. In the Central African Republic, the bodies of a woman and two girls were found days after they were kidnapped and raped by armed fighters. In Iraq, 2,800 Yazidi women and children were held captive by the Islamic State extremist group for eight years, many of them subjected to sexual violence.
These are the UN Security Council Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, and Iraqi Yazidi Congregation Member and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad at 4 Some of the examples raised by the UN Security Council on 13 March on responsibility for such acts in the conflict, a minority forced into sex slavery in 2014, she fled from Islamic State captivity.
Patten’s opening remarks took aim directly at the United Nations’ most powerful agency, which has approved five resolutions focused on preventing and addressing conflict-related sexual violence. What do these resolutions mean now for women in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar or the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, she asked?
At a time of “great global upheaval marked by multiple crises,” she said, the world has seen “increased militarization, including the prevalence of coups, that have set women’s rights back in time.” Witnessed human tragedies, “including the oldest, most silent and least condemned crimes of a new wave of war” – sexual violence and rape in those countries and other countries where victims “call for justice and redress” .
The gap between the Security Council’s commitment and compliance and reality is stark, said Patten: The latest UN report, covering conflicts in 18 countries, recorded 3,293 UN-verified cases of sexual violence in 2021, a marked increase from 2020 An increase of 800. Again, the highest number – 1,016 – was recorded in Congo, she said.
Patten also cited other examples of conflict zones: two Rohingya minority women in Myanmar’s Chin State were gang-raped by government soldiers, resulting in an unintended pregnancy; a woman was allegedly raped at gunpoint by Puntland police in Somalia, she said “Kidnapping, rape and forced marriage are rampant”; documented cases of sexual violence against female ex-combatants and their families in Colombia; torture and killing of an eight-month-pregnant female police officer in Ghor province, Afghanistan.
The UN special representative said the small number of cases in which courts have convicted perpetrators “remains exceptions that prove the rule of justice has been denied.” Justice must be served in the community and in the courts, and victims must be compensated to rebuild their shattered lives, she said, stressing that “justice, peace and security are inseparable”.
In times of global instability — such as today’s world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and war — issues such as conflict-related sexual violence “are often pushed aside as if they were in some way,” Murad said. Extent is a secondary practical issue.” But she said: “The truth is this is a time when protecting, supporting and investing in women and girls should be a priority.”
History has shown that when conflict breaks out, brutality comes to the fore. “We are seeing this in Ukraine, and reports of sexual violence should alert us.” Later, she told reporters, “My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. especially those women and girls who face such atrocities.”
“Sexual violence is not a side effect of conflict,” Murad said. “It’s a war strategy that’s been around since ancient times.”
Last year, a German court convicted an Islamic State member of genocide in the death of a Yazidi girl in a historic verdict, she said. But despite overwhelming evidence of IS atrocities against women and girls, she said extremist perpetrators faced little, if any, consequences.
Murad said survivors needed “more than just moral outrage” and urged the Security Council to vote to refer the Islamic State extremist group to the International Criminal Court for genocide and sexual violence. against the Yazidis. At the same time, she urged other countries to follow Germany’s lead and use the principle of universal jurisdiction to try perpetrators of alleged war crimes.
“If you want to build deterrence, if you want to assure Yazidi women and survivors everywhere that you stand with us, stop delaying justice,” she said.
The UK Secretary of State, Lord Tariq Ahmed, who chaired the meeting, joined her in launching the Murad Code, which aims to tell investigators, journalists and others in the international community how to reduce the burden on survivors of sexual violence and Make sure to safely document their experiences and strengthen the pursuit of justice.
“The road to justice must remove obstacles,” he said. “So in the end, it’s all about survivors who know what their options are. … They have to be at the center of our response.”
