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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=51196#.VYPs73kw_mI
SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & GIRLS
ESCALATES AS WEAPON OF WAR IN MIDDLE
EAST CONFLICTS – UN ENVOY CALL FOR CASE FACTS, DATA, STORIES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
Girl Sold for a Packet of Cigarettes-UN Envoy Fights to Help Women
Suffering Sexual Violence in the Middle East
Gowre, one of more than 7,000 internally displaced
Yazidis living in an unfinished apartment block in a housing estate in Dohuk,
nothern Iraq. Photo: UNHCR / D. Nahr
18 June 2015 – A young man wants to smoke a cigarette but
does not have the money to buy a pack.
“He has a slave girl, he goes and sells her to another
man, and he gets enough money for a pack of cigarettes. That’s it. She is the
value of a pack of cigarettes,” said Zainab Bangura, the Secretary-General’s
Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
This is the story of countless Yazidi women living in
Iraq who have been sold into slavery by the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL) and other terrorist groups, which are using sexual violence as a
central aspect of their ideology.
Ms. Bangura recalled these and other stories after she
returned from a mission to the Middle East in April during which she met with women
and girls who survived sexual violence.
“I was heartbroken,” stated the United Nations official.
“I listened to girls who have tried to commit suicide, girls who tried to jump
out of windows, run away, and girls whose family had to pay ransom. I think
these stories actually shocked me.”
Ms. Bangura’s visit took her to Syria, Iraq, Turkey,
Lebanon and Jordan. In Syria, one in three women is at risk of gender-based
violence. The five-year crisis there has given rise to completely new patterns
of child and forced marriage to fighters and sexual slavery. Sexual violence is
increasingly being used as a weapon of war.
"I'll be their voice" - UN Envoy on Sexual
Violence in Conflict. Credit: United Nations
According to a report
submitted earlier this year, the ideological opposition of extremist groups to
the education of girls has placed them at heightened risk of abuse. Other
trends include the use of sexual violence as a form of persecution to forcibly
displace populations as well as the vulnerability of displaced and refugee
women and girls to sexual abuse.
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UN SECRETARY-GENERAL REPORT ON CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL
VIOLENCE – March 23, 2015
http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2015/203 - Click to language translation of choice.
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From information Ms. Bangura received during her visit,
and from reports that came in, ISIL allegedly issued a “regulation” setting out
the prices to be paid for Yazidi and Christian women and girls, the amounts
varying according to age. The promise of sexual access to women and girls has
been used in ISIL propaganda materials as part of its recruitment strategy and
an estimated 1,500 civilians may have been forced into sexual slavery.
The purpose of her trip was to hear the personal stories
of women who have lived through the ordeal, the stories that the world hears
time and time again and has even become numb to, but not Ms. Bangura.
“What I heard was just unbelievable, shocking,” she said.
“The most difficult moment was actually in Jordan, where I was told about a
girl who, for the last four years, had been married 22 times. She is 21 years
old, and every time this marriage is arranged, they had to do a surgical
operation to her, to be able to rebuild her virginity so that she can become a
virgin for her next marriage. Twenty-one-year-old girl, married off 22 times,
stitched 22 times just so that somebody can make money on her.”
Ms. Bangura with women in Lebanon, which is hosting over
one million refugees. Photo: Pasqual Gorriz/UNIFIL
On an upbeat note, in February 2014, Iraq became the
first nation in the Arab world to adopt a national action plan for the
implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) that includes
elements addressing sexual violence. National authorities have been asked to
join hands in preventing impunity.
Ms. Bangura, who herself grew up a refugee in Burundi,
said she wanted to bring hope to the women and girls she met.
“I tell them my own story, and I tell them how I came out
very strongly, and I give them insights of other women I’ve visited around the
world and they are doing extremely well. So it’s hope. You can’t give them
something immediately but you can give them that sense of hope.”
“They know that someone knows their story, and someone is
listening to them,” Ms. Bangura added. “That gives them the inspiration to
fight back, stand up and pick up the pieces of their life.”
Education, she stressed, is the “golden key” and the best
asset that a child can have.
“Both of my parents were illiterate… and look at
what I am today. I never thought I would be in this position, but because of
education, and the resilience of my mother and the support, I became the
Minister of Foreign Affairs in my country and now I am at a global stage.”
“These are people who believe the world is against them,
so you are standing with them and saying ‘you know you could be like me but you
just need to take one step, and that step is go to school, get an education,
concentrate on it, and you’ll come out a winner.’”
But tangible changes are still needed. Since her return
from the Middle East, Ms. Bangura has presented her case to the Security
Council as well as other UN colleagues.
“Sometimes people have tears in their eyes and people are
so shocked. I don’t really believe people have a lot of knowledge of what is
happening because we try to be politically correct.
“We try to be civilized, we don’t say certain words, you
know, we try to cushion the words. But I say it like it is and I really hope
that it is going to galvanize a lot of people to understand things for what
they are.
“I’ll be their voice,” the envoy added, referring
to the women and girls she met. “I’ll bring their stories to the international
arena.
“People need to know that these women and girls are
alive, that their stories are real and that they need help. And I’ll continue
to do it and make sure people know how terrorist groups institutionalize sexual
violence and the brutalization of women.”
In addition to being a voice for the voiceless, Ms.
Bangura advocates for the victims when she confronts parties to conflicts, both
State and non-State actors, who have an obligation under international
humanitarian law to prevent and punish such crimes.
As the world body’s top official dealing with sexual
violence in conflict, she works with UN agencies active in the field that are
providing the critical protection and assistance needed, particularly by
the women and girls who are suffering even in the places where they are seeking
refuge.
After meeting with displaced women in Iraq and Syria, and
refugees who had fled to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, she recently told Fareed
Zakaria of CNN that “such extreme violence requires political and security
responses, but also legal and social response.”
She drew attention to the fact that the provisions of
humanitarian appeals dealing with services to sexual violence survivors are
perpetually underfunded, and advocated for support to the neighbouring
refugee-hosting countries that are under tremendous pressure.
For example, UN staff at the sprawling Zaatari refugee
camp in Jordan spoke of the need going forward to expand the cash-for-work
assistance programmes – now primarily designed for men – and alternative forms
of livelihood for single women and single mothers as a concrete example of the
options and mechanisms that should be place.
And as part of her work to assist, the top UN population
officer in Jordan is collecting evidence-based information after a surge in
requests from young refugee women who want post-abortion care for “unplanned”
pregnancies or those related to “unwanted relations.”
A Yazidi woman and child at the Khanke camp for
internally displaced people in Iraq. Photo: Fabienne Vinet/UNAMI
Meanwhile, UN investigator Rabiaa el-Gharani compared the
“much higher and horrifying” level of violence in Iraq, citing the
attacks on different villages like the one last August on a large group of
Yazidi women, to the more “individual cases” of rape and sexual violence
reported in Syria at check-points, detention centres and homes.
But what all victims seem to have in common is a fear of
reaction of community and family members and the stigma attached to survivors
of sexual violence, which results in “extreme” underreporting, a key challenge
that Ms. Bangura heard throughout her trip.
So in order to be able to do what she can as their top
advocate, Ms. Bangura urges groups with their eyes and ears on the ground in
the field to provide the information and facts about sexual violence that women
and girls are being subjected to so that she can use the collected data to
confront governments.
“If
you don’t look, you don’t see,” she appealed to a group of local NGOs working
with refugee women in Turkey. “It is very difficult when a woman has been raped
to admit that she has been raped.”