Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

In Mali, which has been included in the report for the first time, children were recruited by all armed groups active in the north. We also received information that boys and girls were associated with pro-Government militias in performing various tasks, including participation in combat.

As Ms. Zerrougui pointed out this morning, the absence of clear front lines and identifiable opponents and the tactics used by terrorist groups make children vulnerable in conflict situations. Children have been used as suicide bombers and human shields. Schools continue to be attacked, which particularly affects girls' education.

Thousands of child victims of violent attacks by M-23 have suffered serious physical and psychological damage. Adequate reparations are needed to cover emotional damage, for example in cases of depression, loss of self-esteem, stress, involuntary abortions for young girls who were raped, infant mortality and sexually transmitted infections.

In fact, the language of weapons and violence has resurfaced in North Kivu since the M-23 rebels who deserted from the ranks of the Congolese army in April 2012 turned their weapons on the regular army.

In the case of the LRA, attacks often target schools, where the rebels recruit children for use as child soldiers or to carry loot and stolen and pillaged items if they are boys or as sex slaves and cooking staff if they are girls. It is the same for other rebel groups, in particular the Séléka, which has recruited children for the same tasks.

Sexual violence affects millions of children in conflicts. Our research and programming indicate that the majority of the survivors of sexual violence in conflict-affected countries are children — mostly girls but also boys. Sexual violence has significant physical, psychological and social impacts on children, but their needs for specific protection and child-sensitive responses are frequently neglected.

Two weeks ago, I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, where an estimated 50,000 women were targeted with rape and other forms of sexual violence during four years of conflict. But 20 years after peace was re-established, impunity for those crimes still reigns. There have been only a handful of prosecutions.

Twenty years ago, the United Nations provided irrefutable evidence that the widespread and systematic rape of women, girls and men was being perpetrated in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. That led to unprecedented advances in international jurisprudence — the recognition of rape as a war crime and crime against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunals established for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Today it is still largely cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in conflict. Sexual violence has been used throughout the ages precisely because it is such a cheap and devastating weapon. But for the first time in history, we can reverse that reality.

To the contrary, the resolutions of the Security Council affirm that this crime, when committed systematically and used as a tool of war, is a fundamental threat to the maintenance of international peace and security, and as such requires an operational, security and justice response. That paradigm shift requires a new approach to attack the scourge of war-time rape.