Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Supporting women's leadership and participation is essential to addressing, responding to, and indeed ending sexual violence. Women are powerful agents of change, and we must harness that capacity by promoting their far greater participation in conflict resolution and post-conflict transitions.

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.

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.

We cannot explain why sexual violence against women and sexist and gender-based violence has occurred with growing and overwhelming frequency in armed conflicts, unless we also add to the equation the inequality between men and women, gender stereotypes and the reproduction of hierarchical and discriminatory relationships in which women find themselves materially subordinate and symbolically devalued in various times and cultures.

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 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.

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.

That is why we agree with the idea that all peacekeeping mandates should explicitly include the gender perspective in the protection of civilians and incorporate specific guidelines on preventing, eradicating and punishing all forms of violence against women, with a focus on human rights, as well as a full and multidimensional understanding of that scourge.

One can say, without exaggeration, that, during times of conflict, very few women have been able to chronicle the sexual violence of which they were victims. That was clearly seen when the International Criminal Tribunal for your country, Madam President, pointed out in the Akayesu case, that cultural sensitivities have a bearing on the discussion of intimate matters.

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.