WUNRN
Combating
Sexual Violence in Conflict: Using Facts from the Ground
Speech by
Donald Steinberg, Deputy President, International Crisis Group, to United
Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict in Geneva, 17 December 2008
Colleagues:
I am honored to have the opportunity to address this meeting convened by the UN
Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict on the role of facts from the ground
in advocacy and implementation of measures to prevent sexual violence in
conflict. Drawing together 13 UN entities, UN Action serves as a vital
coordinating mechanism to ensure country level action, advocacy for public
awareness and political will, and creation of a knowledge hub on sexual
violence in conflict. This meeting, drawing together practitioners with
experience and expertise in collection of data from the ground, is a key part
of this effort.
The most
important use of data on the patterns and prevalence of sexual violence in
conflict relates to the development of specific programs and policies to
prevent such violence and assist its victims. Many key insights can be derived
from identifying the profile of perpetrators, for example. If most rapes are
carried out by government security forces, then there is a clear need for
expanded programs of security sector reform, prosecution of individual
soldiers/police and their commanders, expansion of the numbers of women in
security forces, and new training in protection of civilians.
If the data
show broad unreported numbers of rapes, there should be emphasis on steps to
facilitate women’s access to the justice system, to look at social mores that
may condone such behavior and to conduct civic education programs to make
individuals aware of their rights. To the extent that sexual violence is
occurring primarily in the context of camps for refugees or internally
displaced persons, new structures such as firewood patrols, physical
reorganization of sites, and community policing should be considered.
A
Threshold of Credibility
At the same
time, facts from the ground have a vital role to play in advocacy. To build an
awareness of the problem and create the political will among senior officials
within governments, international organizations, and civil society to address
it, a combination of factors must come together to prick the collective
conscience. While the actual numbers of rapes and sexual assaults have little
meaning when taken out of context, data are essential to creating a sense that
the phenomenon is widespread, that the current efforts to combat it are
insufficient, and that enough is known about the situation to allow for
effective action. It is essential to meet what I called a threshold of
credibility.
The efforts
of activists in civil society, the United Nations and country missions of UN
Security Council members during the first half of 2008 to draft and adopt a
resolution on sexual violence in conflict are instructive. The so-called
"poster child" of this effort was the tragic situation in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Dramatization through personal accounts of
sexual assaults was vital. Visits to international capitals by victims of rapes
and those who treat them – including the courageous Denis Mukwege, who directs
the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, which treats rape victims from the region – had a
major impact.
The fifteen
ambassadors to the Security Council, all men, were lobbied by their spouses and
other advocates. For example, they were made to watch films such as The
Greatest Silence by director Lisa Jackson, which galvanized their support.
Efforts by UN Action Against Sexual Violence, including the hosting of a
conference on UN peacekeepers’ role in prevention of sexual violence at Wilton
Park, helped ensure that key policy-makers were personally invested in this
effort. Support from a small group of like-minded UN missions, led by
Ambassadors Zalmay Khalilzad (US) and John Sawers (UK), backed respectively by
staff members Laurie Phipps and Phil Staltonstall, was essential. Pressure also
came from US Representative William Delahunt, who is in charge of Congressional
oversight for the US activities at the United Nations and held hearings on the
effect of conflict on women – at which I was pleased to testify – in advance of
the Security Council debate.
In this
process, it was important to go beyond testimonials and to cite some
statistics. At this point, however, it was enough to have a few numbers to meet
the threshold of credibility. It was sufficient to be able to say with total
confidence that there were 27,000 reported cases of rape in the South Kivu
province of the DRC, or so some 70 every day.
Implementing
UNSC Resolution 1820
The result
was UNSC Resolution 1820, a ground-breaking resolution that mandates action by
the UN Secretariat, member states, and others to combat sexual violence in
conflict. However, it is important to note that the members of the Security
Council were by no means satisfied that they had a clear picture of the
phenomenon. Indeed, Resolution 1820 called for an "analysis of prevalence
and trends, benchmarks for measuring progress, and plans for a lasting solution
to the dearth of reliable sexual violence data." It was as if the Council
was saying to the practitioners, "You’ve convinced us that this is a
serious problem, but it seems that you don’t know enough about what’s going on
or how to address it."
Such a
statement should be taken as a challenge to assemble the data needed to do the
job. The data will be essential to maintaining the necessary political will to
implement the resolution. This is essential for two reasons. First, Resolution
1820 is not an easy resolution to implement. To paraphrase a saying from
American politics, "You pass a Security Council resolution in poetry; but
you implement it in prose." This resolution demands at least 20 disparate
actions to be taken by a wide range of actors, including the UN
Secretary-General, the Security Council itself, parties to conflict, troop and
police contributing countries, the UN Peacebuilding Commission, international
financial institutions, and regional and sub-regional organizations.
Second,
Resolution 1820 has inadequate mechanisms for implementation and
accountability. Contrasted with UNSC resolution 1612 on children and armed
conflict, for example, there are no lists of parties in violation, no working
group of the Security Council, no requirement for concrete time-bound actions
plans to halt the practice, no clear focal point with a dedicated budget, and
few compliance mechanisms. It is hoped that the mandated report of the
Secretary General, which the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations is
diligently preparing, will address these failings, and that UN Action Against
Sexual Violence can increasingly serve as the focal point for these
coordination efforts.
A
Cautionary Tale from 1325
These are
not idle or theoretical concerns, but vital issues that can determine the
success or failure of the UN effort to combat sexual violence. A cautionary
tale on UNSC Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security is relevant. In summer
2002, State Department Undersecretary for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky and I
were deeply concerned that there had been insufficient follow-up on in the 18
months since the passage of Resolution 1325. We put together a detailed program
for the United States to use its Security Council presidency in August 2002 to
give a needed push to its implementation. After initially agreeing to this
proposal, then-UN Ambassador John Negroponte changed his mind and said no. This
was a short-sighted decision that betrayed what some believe is his
insensitivity to human rights issues, but his explanation was instructive. He
said that he feared that the debate in the Council would be "unstructured
and all over the map", since advocates could not provide statistical data
to document the success or failure in implementing specific provisions.
A lack of
credible data will bedevil advocacy efforts as well. For example, in pressing
for UN action to halt the latest round of violence in eastern DRC in November,
a Congolese women’s declaration at the Association for Women’s Rights in
Development could refer only to "thousands of raped women and girls,"
with no greater specificity. Similarly, an otherwise powerful letter to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and
Security could say only that the 66 women treated for rape in Kanyabayonga in
North Kivu "represent only a fraction of the crimes of sexual violence
being committed throughout the region."
In
conclusion, additional authoritative data from the ground are essential in to
meeting the "threshold of credibility" needed to build political
will, providing measurement tools to assess new and on-going efforts at
prevention, developing specific provisions and programs to maximize our
efforts, and ensuring that the critical mass of officials from international
organizations, governments and civil society that came together to adopt
Resolution 1820 will remain together in the face of shrinking resources that
will require tough trade-offs.
We are
facing an era of reduced budgets and increasing difficulties in finding
peacekeeping forces, for example. Are we going to decline the offer of forces
if they have not had training in prevention of sexual violence or the supplying
country has a dubious past history on this issue? Are we prepared to adopt
sanctions on officials of shaky post-conflict governments that fail to
prosecute perpetrators of sexual violence within their security forces? Are we
prepared to reject impunity for such perpetrators in peace agreements, even if
they are shown to be individual acts not part of a pattern of war crimes or
crimes against humanity?
The answers
to these questions will be largely based on the documentation we can provide
from the ground. This is a heavy burden of responsibility, but one we must
meet. As anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has."
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.