Luxembourg

The evidence is clear: sexual violence in conflict spares no one. It affects adults and children, men as well as women, as evidenced by the increasingly frequent acts of sexual violence against men and boys as a tactic of war or in the context of incarceration or interrogation. The violence documented in Syria, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo is the sad illustration of those facts.

The Council's actions set an example, and its responsibility in this area is essential. That is clear in the explicit references to the agenda on women and peace and security in the agreed conclusions recently adopted by the Commission on the Status of Women, whose main theme, as I recall, was the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women.

The Council must be fully informed before acting, which is why it is so important to establish follow-up, analysis and information-exchange mechanisms within peacekeeping operations and political missions and to provide for the deployment of sufficient numbers of women protection advisers, who have a crucial role to play in the coordination of the implementation of Security Council resolutions on conflict-related sexual violence. Luxemburg will remain committed to ensuring that future mandates, as well as the renewal of existing mandates, take into consideration this important aspect. As the Secretary-General underscored this morning, it is important to constantly incorporate that aspect into mission planning and budgeting.

It is under national jurisdictions that perpetrators should primarily be tried, and we must therefore support national Governments in their fight against impunity. Based on the principle of complementarity, international criminal justice still has an important role to play, and we very much welcome the efforts undertaken in that regard by the International Criminal Court.

Every victory against impunity is a victory against sexual violence, for only the certainty that a crime will not go unpunished is a real deterrent. The fight against impunity is also the first step in reinstating the rights of victims. It is not the only step: it is also necessary to take measures such as granting compensation to repair, as far as possible, the consequences of the damage caused.

The fight against sexual violence must also be integrated into all security sector and justice reform processes worthy of the name. In that regard, Luxemburg has supported a number of workshops, including in South Sudan and Liberia, aimed at strengthening the contribution of United Nations peacekeeping operations to the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). In particular, they sought to ensure that women were better represented at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts.

In conclusion, we hope that today's debate, the Special Representative's briefings to the Council on specific situations, such as that on Syria tomorrow, as well as the discussions the Council will hold over the coming months on this topic will enable real results to be achieved. In terms of follow-up, it would be particularly worthwhile to establish, as proposed by the Secretary-General, a system that would better enable us to monitor the fulfilment of commitments undertaken to fight sexual violence by the parties to a conflict in implementation of resolution 1960 (2010).