The Secretary-General's report (S/2012/33) on conflict-related sexual violenc...

The Secretary-General's report (S/2012/33) on conflict-related sexual violence demonstrates the importance of having a Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. In just the past year, she was able, together with the Team of Experts, to assemble the evidence available in the report, and to begin to address some of the horrors it describes. From the beginning, the United States has supported the Special Representative and the Team of Experts, both

in advocating their mandates and financing their work. It is time and money well spent. The Special Representative has, first of all, gathered facts. We now know how rape was used to humiliate and punish during the post-election crisis in Côte d'Ivoire. We know now that 625 cases of sexual violence by warring parties were recorded by the United Nations from December 2010 to November 2011 in the North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale

provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have before us figures, dates, names of perpetrators and perpetrating forces in those countries, as well as in Burma, Somalia, the Sudan and South Sudan. We also now have information, sometimes very extensive information, about sexual violence perpetrated in post-conflict situations and situations of civil unrest, in the Central African Republic, Syria, Guinea, Nepal and elsewhere. The Special Representative and the Team of Experts have demonstrated the extent of the problem. Their work is also increasing awareness of the issue and encouraging best practices. In the reporting period, more than 150 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from various types of security forces, were sentenced after trial to punishment for crimes of sexual violence. A total of 9,534 Congolese survivors of sexual violence in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, including at least 1,700 children, received medical and psychosocial support. Congolese officers in two conflict-affected provinces are now receiving training from the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), to train their own soldiers on how to prevent sexual violence and deal properly with witnesses and victims. Those training modules will become the national standard for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.