Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

To conclude, we are encouraged by the additional measures proposed in the Secretary-General's report. Canada calls on the Security Council to take action today to respond to the report's recommendations so that the international community can undertake active and coordinated efforts to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence.

The prevention of and response to sexual violence should also be included in the mandates of all United Nations peacekeeping missions. To that end, the Council must design and implement mandates to support peace efforts that better respond to all forms of violence against civilians, and ensure that strategies for combating sexual violence in conflict are integrated into the work of United Nations country teams.

Systematic data collection on grave violations of women's and girls' human rights, including on sexual violence, is of the utmost importance in effective monitoring and response.

In this sense, preventing, addressing and eliminating sexual violence requires cultural, societal and institutional changes. Canada calls on Member States and the United Nations system to ensure that Ms. Wallström's Office is adequately resourced and capable of timely action to support such changes.

In addition, as recognized in resolution 1820 (2008), we also strongly support the exclusion of crimes of sexual violence from amnesty provisions in the context of peace processes.

Canada's long-standing support for the rights and well-being of women and girls in situations of conflict is reflected through our continuing active implementation of Council resolutions, including through strong advocacy work, significant international programming addressing sexual violence, support for civil society and efforts to strengthen international criminal justice mechanisms.

Canada welcomes today's presentation by Special Representative of the Secretary-General Wallström, and strongly supports her efforts to provide strategic leadership and strengthen United Nations coordination mechanisms in order to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence.

Canada strongly supports the Security Council's recognition of the need to take effective measures to address conflict-related sexual violence and welcomes the report of the Secretary-General (S/2010/604) pursuant to resolutions 1820 (2008) and 1888 (2009), including their recommendations.

Canada also calls on the Council to increase pressure on States to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to account through adoption of sanctions and other targeted measures against individuals and entities that have perpetrated sexual violence. This must, of course, be done in accordance with standards of due process.

When the Council takes up issues such as sexual violence, the challenge is how to address in political, and even operational, terms an issue that is deeply moral in nature. In other words, the Council is called upon to help to translate our sorrow and outrage at such horrific violence into practical action capable of bringing about real change.