Furthermore, we will continue our financial support for the International Cri...

Furthermore, we will continue our financial support for the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims, which adopts a gender-based perspective across all programming and has a specific focus on victims of sexual and gender violence. We hope that the Fund will get more support from States as a result of their national efforts to implement SCR 1325. Resolution 1325 and its follow-up 1820 call for decisive action against sexual violence in times of armed conflict. The explicit inclusion of sexual violence in the provisions dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity was one most significant advances of international law reflected in the Rome Statute of the ICC. Today, the Court is dealing with a number of situations where sexual violence is rampant including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Court therefore has jurisdiction over any crimes within the remit of its Statute committed in the DRC since 1 July 2002. The Court will soon begin trying Callixte Mbarushimana, an FDLR militia leader arrested on 11 October, who is indicted on charges of sexual violence, among other things.