Argentina

My country aligns itself with and supports the proposal to establish an appropriate monitoring mechanism within the Security Council on the problem of sexual violence in conflict.

We note that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has introduced a robust policy on women refugees, has prepared action guidelines for the protection of women refugees and will continue to include the gender dimension in its assistance and protection work.

Resolution 1325 (2000), on women and peace and security, together with other Council resolutions, signified and still represents a huge breakthrough. In that resolution, the Council recognized the fundamental role that women played in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peacebuilding. It underlined the importance of effective and equal participation by women in the maintenance of peace and security and the need to include women, under equal conditions, in decision-making processes for the prevention and resolution of conflicts.

We are aware that there is much more to do. It is terrible and painful to acknowledge that women and girls have been and remain the main victims of violence in armed conflicts, specifically of sexual and gender-based violence. It is particularly serious that such violence is often abetted by the indifference and complicity of those responsible for protecting civilians — and women and children — who may include members of a State's armed and security forces, peacekeeping operations or non-governmental organization volunteers working in the field.

It is also true that the general needs of women must be recognized, as that is fundamental in meeting the specific diverse and multifaceted needs of women. We must understand the local and cultural context, which is crucial to understanding and responding to conflict- related violence.

We encourage the training of peacekeepers, both civilian and military and police, and the strengthening of the human rights component, particularly with regard to women's and children's human rights, as well as comprehensively addressing the various forms of violence against women, particularly sexual violence.

Allow me to refer to work that has been carried out in my country, known as “Cracks in the Silence”, by the women's organization CLADEM, which has investigated sexual violence against women during the period of State terrorism in my country. The investigation helped to reveal the sexual crimes committed during that cruel and painful period. It showed that those crimes had been broadly suppressed and made invisible; not only because seeking justice for individual crimes of sexual violence as individual cases and crimes against humanity — they are not like crimes of torture or abuse — was a difficult and complex process, but because it was also necessary to confront and overcome enormous cultural, political and institutional obstacles in determining the criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the crimes and reparations for the victims.

We can also cite, in that connection, the recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women with regard to proactive measures to publicize trials and punishment for sexual violence perpetrated during dictatorships or conflicts.

We also know that feelings not only of guilt, but also of humiliation, contribute to silence. Internalized social shame takes hold of women who have been victims of sexual violence, because sexuality is considered an intimate and private domain. To speak publicly about such things indicates that everybody knows that the victims have been humiliated, violated, raped and forced to submit.

In that respect, the Commission to Clarify Past Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence That Have Caused the Guatemalan Population to Suffer indicated in its final report that the absolute impunity protecting those responsible for sexual violations increased women's insecurity and contributed to the victims' not reporting the facts.

Women do not become victims by virtue of who they are, or as the result of nature or fate. Women are particularly susceptible to becoming victims of violence in conflict most especially because we are already victims of discrimination during peaceful times.

It is apposite, because as we have seen in recent conflicts, specific and systematic forms of sexual violence are carried out against women, young women and girls. In that connection, I would like to share with the Council the testimony of a social activist who, for the simple act of thinking and saying that the world is unjust and unequal, was disappeared, tortured and raped during the recent civilian military dictatorship in my country. “During torture, one discovered that we had resources to withstand very high thresholds of pain, somehow to survive and to live. However, rape is something else. It affects other elements — and they know it because, in addition to the evident, there is an immeasurable amount of inner pain that is not seen like the bruises left by the blows or the burns from the electric shocks, but it is there. It is as if one's body freezes or becomes that of another person, not only at the time but for ever, for life.” We have made progress in jurisprudence. We have made progress in recognizing rights. We must now bring about real equality and the effective eradication of all forms of violence against women.