Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

As a family of nations, our responsibility to one another stems from our common humanity. Our moral imperative supersedes whatever politics, religion or geography may divide us. There can be zero tolerance for sexual violence. We must tirelessly persist until the day when women are the agents of peace rather than the victims of war.

While there has been a welcome shift towards acknowledging conflict-related sexual violence as an issue of peace and security, rather than viewing it simply as a women's issue, it is undeniable that sexual violence touches women and affects women far more profoundly than men. It is therefore appropriate that women take the lead in driving the necessary national political change.

While the greatest potential for change lies at the national level, we must all assume more responsibility and do so with a keener sense of urgency. For our part, Ireland recently published an independent mid-term progress report on implementation of our national action plan, based on resolution 1325 (2000).

The Secretary-General's most recent report (S/2013/335) makes a series of further useful recommendations, but we are disappointed to see little evidence of progress regarding the very first recommendation, that is, that the Security Council should identify ways to target suspected perpetrators with sanctions and other measures in countries where no sanctions regime applies.

The Secretary-General and Special Representative Bangura have long emphasized that a radical challenge to impunity can only be delivered at the national level. The real imperative in that regard is the assumption by national political leaders of ownership of this agenda.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region, which might be considered the cockpit of conflict-related sexual violence, is a case in point. On 4 June, the Permanent Mission of Ireland convened a high-level panel discussion on women and peacebuilding in the Great Lakes region. A report on the event is available on our website.

In support of Mary Robinson, Lina Zedriga and women's leaders like her from the region intend to join forces to change the national political calculus. They aim to encourage and pressure national political leaders to take ownership of the issue of sexual violence and to implement the full range of commitments they have made under the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework.

Despite the broad range of activities and efforts under way, the scourge of sexual violence remains pervasive in many conflict and post-conflict situations. How does impunity for those crimes persist? What explains the reluctance to take decisive action to address that impunity — to send a definitive signal that sexual violence will no longer be tolerated?

As Zainab Bangura pointed out, it is still largely cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in conflict, and sexual violence is used so widely precisely because it is “such a cheap and devastating weapon”. Although there are many worthwhile initiatives being pursued to combat sexual violence, they are not enough.

It is in that context that we take the view that national Governments have the primary responsibility for prosecuting and deterring such crimes in conflict situations on their territories, even if these are alleged to have been committed by so-called militia groups. We believe that national Governments should be assisted by the United Nations in augmenting their capacities to deal with this issue.