WUNRN
Sexual Violence Must Be
Peace-Talk Topic
"Horrific and
heartbreaking" stories of rape in war-ravaged countries show why any peace
and cease-fire talks must include sexual-violence prevention, says Zainab Hawa
Bangura, United Nations envoy on sexual violence in conflict. Bangura says the
world must make it a "massive liability to commit, command or condone
sexual violence in conflict."
UN ENVOY ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN
CONFLICT TELLS SECURITY COUNCIL OF HORRIFIC
GENDER ABUSE & NEED FOR SEXUAL
VIOLENCE PREVENTION IN ALL PEACE TALKS
By
Michelle Nichols - April 17, 2013
UNITED
NATIONS (Reuters) - In her first seven months as U.N. envoy on
sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura has visited a Congolese
district where rebels raped babies, and Somalia where a woman was paid $150
restitution for the rape of her 4-year-old daughter.
She met a refugee at a camp in Kenya who had been
raped at gunpoint when she was eight-months-pregnant while gathering firewood
and a Somali father who was fighting for justice for his daughters, aged 4 and
6, who had both been raped.
"The stories are horrific and heartbreaking and
when these survivors tell you what they endured, and continue to endure, you
know that one person raped in war is one too many," said Bangura, who
briefed the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.
She told the 15-member council it was still largely
"cost-free" to rape a woman, child or man in conflict and that this
must be reversed to make it a "massive liability to commit, command or
condone sexual violence in conflict."
Any future peace and ceasefire deals in conflicts like
Syria and Mali must include sexual
violence prevention, Bangura said. Bangura, a former health minister of Sierra
Leone, said she plans to visit Syria, Mali and South Sudan as soon as possible.
"I visited a community where last year 11 babies,
between 6 and 12 months old, were raped by elements of Mai Mai Morgan,"
she said, referring to a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "It is unimaginable
that anyone could have committed such an atrocity."
Bangura also told reporters that in the same community
- the Ituri district in turbulent eastern Congo on its border with Uganda - 59 children aged
between 1 and 3, and 182 children between 5 and 15 years old had been raped
last year.
"Under the cold light of strategy and tactics,
the rationale and purpose is clear. What more effective way can there be to
destroy a community than to target and devastate its children?" she told
the Security Council.
WAR'S 'LEAST CONDEMNED CRIME'
Bangura said Congolese President Joseph Kabila had
pledged to prosecute crimes of sexual violence more effectively and that the
country's parliament had said it would establish a working group on the issue.
A written report to the Security Council from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, based on Bangura's work, named 14 armed groups along with the Congolese army and police that it said used sexual violence in conflict.
Direct Link to Full 32-Page UN
Report:
The report also lists groups in Central African
Republic and groups and government forces in Ivory Coast, Syria and Mali.
Since January 2012, there have been 211 cases of
sexual violence reported in Mali, including rape, sexual slavery, forced
marriage and gang rape, according to the report.
"The majority of women and girls refused to
report for fear of retribution and banishment by their spouses and the
community," Ban's report said. "In rebel-controlled zones, rape was
used as a tactic of war."
Bangura told reporters the insecurity and lack of
access in Syria meant it was hard to determine the scale of
the problem.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and Syrian
U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari criticized the report for not reporting
accusations of sexual violence by opposition groups during Syria's two-year-old
civil war.
"Responsibility for sexual crimes in Syria is
placed only on government forces and their supporters. Similar crimes committed
by the opposition are only obliquely referenced in spite of the presence of
many such claims of them," Churkin told the council.
Bangura described sexual violence in conflict as
"war's oldest and least condemned crime."
"Sexual violence has been used throughout the
ages because it's such a cheap and devastating weapon," she told the
Security Council. "The perpetrators must understand that there can be no
hiding place, no amnesty, no safe harbor."