Finally, I ask once again the painful question of whether we as a collective ...

Finally, I ask once again the painful question of whether we as a collective membership, bound together in this Organization by its Charter, actually have the credibility to offer strong opinions on this subject matter? Do we have the credibility when all of us have refused to undertake the complete range of actions necessary to ensure that sexual exploitation and abuse by our own peacekeepers — United Nations peacekeepers — is reduced to zero? Can we not be accused by others of hypocrisy when in this Chamber we rightly condemn all expressions of conflict-related sexual violence committed against women, girls and boys, and speak of them as criminal and intolerable — as we have done for 14 years now — while down the hall, only a few metres from here in the Sixth Committee, we do next to nothing, year in year out, on the draft convention on criminal accountability of United Nations officials and experts on mission — a draft that has been on the agenda of the Sixth Committee since 2007.