Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Considering that the Council has recognized that conflict-related sexual violence is a legitimate threat to international peace and security, we hope that it will remain actively engaged with the matter. It is important to maintain focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women in broader rule of law activities.

Secondly, women and children must be placed at the centre of transitional justice mechanisms. We commend the Council for its efforts in combating impunity for sexual and gender-based violence, in promoting gender-responsive justice reforms and in securing women's participation in all aspects of postconflict recovery.

In that regard, let me also mention the great importance that the Human Security Network attaches to the role of the Council in the protection of women and children. We are pleased with the work undertaken by the Security Council in progressively strengthening the protection framework for children affected by armed conflict, as well as with its efforts to prevent and combat sexual violence.

My government welcomes the UN's development of training materials focused on sexual and gender-based violence, as well as other tools to help missions improve their protection strategies. The United States helps the UN to survey current practices and has initiated a workshop for missions with civilian-protection mandates.

We welcome the mainstreaming of the Protection of Civilians activity with the work of the SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict and with the working group of the SRSG for Children and Armed Conflict.

We welcome the commitment of the Security Council to establish a stronger protection framework against sexual violence in conflict and for children in armed conflict, most recently through the resolutions 1960 and 1998.

The efforts of the Council to better protect children in armed conflict and to fight against sexual violence in conflict form an integral part of the protection of civilians agenda.

Secondly, the so-called Arab Spring has also helped to highlight the extreme vulnerability of migrants living in or crossing through countries affected by armed violence. These migrants are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by all sides to a conflict, ranging from illegal confiscation of their belongings to sexual exploitation or even torture.

On the implementation side, we welcome the new monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangement on conflict-related sexual violence requested under resolution 1960 (2010), which now is operational. We also very much welcome the recent progress made by DPKO on the completion of new training modules on protection issues for peacekeeping personnel and we look forward to their roll-out in the near future.

I would like to reaffirm our support for the Special Representatives, Mrs. Wallström and Mrs. Coomaraswamy, for their commitment and the quality of their work. In this respect, the Security Council must be able to systematically consider the inclusion of sexual violence among the grounds for sanctions.