I would like to thank Ambassador Van Osterom from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as well as the Ambassadors of Côte d’Ivoire, France and Peru for organizing this event. My gratitude also to you, Ms. Rita Lopidia, for your compelling testimony on the situation in South Sudan.

Excellencies, distinguished panelists and guests,

The unacceptable reality today is that it is still largely cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in many situations of conflict around the world, and sexual violence continues to be employed as a tactic of war, terrorism, torture and repression. It is used precisely because it is such an effective and devastating weapon, destroying not only individuals, but tearing apart families, and fracturing communities.

A Paradigm Shift and Unprecedented Advances

In 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1820, recognizing for the first time that sexual violence is a legitimate threat to the maintenance of international peace and security, and as such opened the door to the use of coercive measures including sanctions provided for in the UN Charter’s Chapter 7.

The infrastructure established by the Security Council through subsequent resolutions to enforce compliance of parties to conflict, aims primarily to address prevailing impunity – essentially to raise the cost and consequences for those who command, commit or condone sexual violence. As a critical aspect of the compliance regime the Council commits to use all means at its disposal including sanctions and other targeted measures against persistent perpetrators.

The Security Council’s willingness to consider the use of targeted sanctions is critical in a context where the paucity of domestic prosecutions for crimes of sexual violence and the limited number of successful international prosecutions, continue to leave a significant impunity gap.

The Council’s focus on sexual violence over the past decade has resulted in a fundamental paradigm shiftsuch as with the adoption of a stand-alone criteria for sexual violence in the sanction regimes for Central Africa Republic in 2017 and for South Sudan in July this year. Another consequence of explicit references to sexual violence in designation criteria is that these concerns are being reflected in the investigations and reporting of some of the Expert Groups who serve the Committees.

  • One key recommendation that I would like to make is that the Council should systematically incorporate sexual violence as a stand-alone criterion and use the same language across the regimes.
  • Another recommendation is the need to ensure that Expert Groups and Monitoring Teams who are the primary source of information and recommendations for designations to Sanctions Committees, have adequate resources and dedicated expertise on gender and conflict-related sexual violence to consistently investigate credible allegations of sexual violence and make recommendations pertaining to listing of individuals and entities on that basis.

The evolution of sanction regimes

The evolution of sanctions regimes from country-specific to thematic sanction regimes, with the imposition of sanctions and targeted measures against terrorist groups and networks involved in sexual violence, sexual slavery and trafficking of persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation in connection with armed conflict, is another welcome development.

The recent report of the Mali Expert Group addressing the connection between sexual violence and trafficking of women and girls, as well as the listing of a trafficking leader by the Sanction Committee for Libya in June this year demonstrate the evolution of the sanction regimes.

My Office has also since 2015 focused on a new dimension of this agenda, namely sexual violence employed as a tactic of terrorism, one that directly intersects with the recruitment and resourcing strategy of armed and violent extremist groups – most notoriously ISIL and Boko-Haram.

Information over the past few years indicates that this is part of the repertoire and modus operandi of terrorist groups such as Daesh, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Al Shabaab. On the basis of analysis provided by my Office, the recognition of sexual violence as a tactic of terrorism was reflected in resolution 2242 on Women, Peace and Security, as well as resolution 2331 which identifies the nexus of trafficking, terrorism and sexual violence. It is encouraging that the resolution updating the 1267 sanctions regime on Al Qaeda, ISIL and affiliated groups, now explicitly refers to sexual violence concerns, and cross-references resolutions 2242 and 2331. This serves to ‘bridge’ the Women, Peace and Security and Sexual Violence in Conflict agenda with the realm of counter-terrorism and its infrastructure.

  • In this connection, I strongly recommend that the 1267 Sanctions Committee, the Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate and the Office on Counter-Terrorism, continue to focus on sexual violence.

Implementation of sanctions

Too few and too late listings deprive the sanctions measures of their potential for deterrence. Once designation criteria on sexual violence have been adopted, they must be activated.

I would hence like to draw your attention to the list annexed to the annual report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-related sexual Violence, which names parties to the conflict that are credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for sexual violence in situations on the Security Council agenda.  These 47 listed parties, particularly “persistent perpetrators” that remain on the list for several years, are eligible for sanctions.

For my part I remain committed to enhancing the cooperation between my mandate and all relevant sanction committees as well as with Panel of Experts.

It is critical that:

  • The formal link between sanction committees, panel of experts, my Office and Women Protection Advisors shall continue to be strengthened as called in by SCR 1888;
  • Sanctions Committees act on new listing recommendations and update the narrative accounts of individuals who are already listed, to reflect crimes of sexual violence;

I also take this opportunity to call on the cooperation of all Member States, especially those from neighboring countries to support full and effective implementation of sanctions.

Conclusion

Rampant, horrific sexual violence is not an inevitable part of conflict, and sanctions could be a valuable tool to end the scourge by sanctioning key individuals. So far, the sanctions tools of the Security Council have been ‘underutilized’. I believe that the Security Council can now to move to the next stage, of more systematic focus on sexual violence by Sanctions regimes, and the designation of individuals and entities on this basis. The activation of the Sanctions infrastructure to consistently focus on and address such violations would send a clear and resounding message to parties to conflicts, and to would-be perpetrators, that such crimes will no longer be tolerated.