Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Chile supports the systematic inclusion of the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence and its follow-up in the relevant country-specific resolutions and in the mandates of special political and peacekeeping missions. These missions, commissions of inquiry and other related mechanisms should consider including women protection advisers.

We would like to highlight the priority that the Secretary-General has accorded this subject since the publication in 2006 of his report on the “In-depth study on all forms of violence against women” (A/61/122/Add.1), which addressed sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Sexual violence continues to be used to humiliate opponents in conflict, as a form of torture, to inflict injury, to extract information, to stigmatize, degrade and intimidate, to destroy communities, to displace communities and groups from their land, and to intentionally spread HIV or reward fighters.

At the regional level, in July 2013 Chile's Joint Peacekeeping Operations Centre, together with the United States Naval Postgraduate School, organized a seminar in Santiago on theme “Women, peace and security: new challenges to implementation of resolution 1325 (2000)”, with the participation of regional professionals. It included training in gender-based sexual violence and resolution 2106 (2013), inter alia.

As the Secretary-General recommends, we urge the consideration of the links between conflict-related sexual violence and the illicit trade in natural resources, as well as such illegal activities as the illicit drugs trade and the traffic in persons covered by the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, its protocols and relevant legal instruments.

Sexual violence continues to be used to humiliate opponents in conflict, as a form of torture, to inflict injury, to extract information, to stigmatize, degrade and intimidate, to destroy communities, to displace communities and groups from their land, and to intentionally spread HIV or reward fighters.

The wake-up calls issued by the adoption of the various resolutions of sexual violence marked significant progress that must be further strengthened by the effective implementation of all of the measures they provide for. Chad recognizes the central role women can play in efforts towards peace and security in situations of conflict.

The repercussions of sexual violence for women and their loved ones are enormous, and the victims are changed for life by what they have suffered. Not only do they often find themselves left alone with no medical or psychosocial assistance, but they are obliged to remain silent in the face of threats against them and any witnesses.

Women are routinely subjected, to different degrees in various societies, to physical, sexual and psychological violence, and are even further victimized in situations of conflict to all sorts of brutal aggression.

States must uphold their obligations to prosecute those who perpetrate such violence and ensure that the victims of sexual violence enjoy equal protection under the law and access to justice. There can be no place for impunity within frameworks seeking to achieve lasting peace, justice, and national truth and reconciliation.