Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Regarding training, we must realize that in a post- conflict scenario, where legal systems are broken, it is essential that the reconstruction of national capacities includes specific training on cultures of impunity. Spain has therefore given support to specific programmes in that area through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Spain Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund.

While scenario-based training for peacekeepers is essential to enhancing operational readiness and prevention, it can never be a panacea for eliminating sexual violence in conflict.

We concur with the five-point priority agenda of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, but we believe that priority must be given to fostering national ownership, leadership and responsibility in addressing sexual violence in conflict, thereby ensuring its sustainability.

The technical assessment missions of peacekeeping operations should, as a matter of standard practice, include an agenda adviser whose primary task must be situational awareness, analysis and recommendations regarding the threat of or acts of sexual violence in conflict.

In closing, every effort must be made to end impunity by perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict. Making parties live up to their commitments in peace agreements, which include the prohibition of sexual violence in such agreements, is certainly one of the tools that must be utilized with fervour.

Turning to the purposes of this debate — to examine the mechanisms and processes by which countries have dealt with the victims and survivors of sexual violence — I would like to share some of the experience of the Solomon Islands in dealing with victims of sexual violence during and after a period of conflict. The Solomon Islands went through an ethnic conflict between 1998 and 2000.

The Solomon Islands agrees that sexual violence is widespread in conflicts and is often used as a tool to deliberately humiliate opponents. A number of Council resolutions speak to that, particularly resolutions 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009) and 1960 (2010), as well as resolution 1325 (2000). It is also correct to say that the vast majority of victims and survivors of sexual violence do not see justice come their way.

The role of UN-Women in combating sexual violence remains important, but its task in the Pacific is challenging. It has one inter-country office managing 13 countries. We continue to push for it to establish itself in more countries in the region.

Secondly, while primary responsibility in this area lies with States, I would like to underscore that in 2003, at the invitation of the Government of the Solomon Islands, a regional assistance mission, as provided for under Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, and led by Australia and strongly supported by New Zealand and all the Pacific small island developing States, was deployed to the Solomon Islands.

Finally, to answer the question posed in the concept paper (S/2013/335, annex) — yes, the Solomon Islands and the Pacific have a story to tell and a model that tries to address the issue of sexual violence comprehensively through regional cooperation.