Excellencies,
I wish to thank you for this opportunity to meet with the Africa Group, and extend my particular thanks to His Excellency, Ambassador Akuei Bona Malwal of South Sudan in his capacity as Chairperson. I also wish to express my appreciation to colleagues at the Permanent Observer Mission of the African Union to the United Nations for their support in arranging this meeting.
While this is my first engagement with the Africa Group in New York as Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, I am pleased to inform you that I had the pleasure to meet with African Union Member States in Addis Ababa last August. The purpose of that engagement was to revitalize the 2013 UN-AU Framework of Cooperation on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in the broader context of the UN-AU Joint Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security.
In 2013, my predecessor, SRSG Bangura signed the Framework of Cooperation with the African Union Commission in order to drive stronger synergy between the African Union and the United Nations in responding to conflict-related sexual violence. The commitment of my Office to the Africa region is further demonstrated by our membership and substantive contribution to the recently established UN Task Force in Support of the African Union Initiative on Silencing the Guns in Africa, established pursuant to Security Council resolution 2457 of 2019. I was also honoured to participate in the two joint AU-UN solidarity missions on women, peace, security and development to the DRC, Nigeria and South Sudan, as part of the delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. These visits provided a critical opportunity for joint dialogue with an array of stakeholders including Heads of State and senior government officials, women’s civil society groups, and religious and traditional leaders.
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Excellencies,
A decade ago, the United Nations Security Council adopted the ground-breaking resolution 1820, which elevated the issue of conflict-related sexual violence onto its agenda as a threat to security and an impediment to the restoration of peace. It urged us to “debunk the myths that fuel sexual violence”, which include the notion of rape as an “inevitable by-product of war”.
My mandate, established by Security Council resolution 1888, adopted in 2009, is to tackle conflict-related sexual violence primarily as a peace and security issue, while bearing in mind the serious human rights and gender equality dimensions of this scourge. On this note, I wish to thank H.E. Mr. Matjila, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations, for his commitment to supporting my Office in marking our 10-year anniversary, through a commemoration which will take place during South Africa’s Presidency of the Security Council in October.
The issue of sexual violence employed as a tactic of war, terror and political repression is a global challenge. It is not specific to any culture or continent, region or religion, but in fact traverses all of history and geography. Accordingly, my mandate is global in scope, covering 19 country situations. The majority of countries monitored by my mandate are in Africa, namely: Burundi, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Yet this does not mean the issue should be perceived as an “African problem”. We are all aware of how sexual violence was used as a tactic of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s and how it occurred on a widespread and systematic scale during the 50-year civil war in Colombia. Furthermore, my Office has documented patterns of widespread atrocities, particularly the use of sexual violence as a driver and “push factor” for forced displacement against Rohingya women and girls during military operations in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. Recent years have also seen alarming trends of sexual violence employed as a tactic of terrorism with devastating effects in Iraq and Syria, making the Middle East and North Africa region an important focus for my mandate.
As an African woman, I fully appreciate the challenges and sensitivities that Member States face in addressing conflict-related sexual violence. Simply stated, my view is that addressing this complex problem in the region requires African solutions and African leadership. In this regard, I would like you to see my Office as a resource for tackling the issue of conflict-related sexual violence and ending the widespread impunity that perpetuates these crimes.
When I took office in June 2017, I articulated three strategic priorities to guide my tenure:
- Firstly, converting cultures of impunity into cultures of deterrence, justice and accountability through consistent and effective prosecution. Prosecution is also a form of prevention, as it raises the costs and consequences of these crimes in the eyes of potential perpetrators. Conversely, we see time and time again that impunity is tantamount to ‘licence to rape’.
- Secondly, fostering national ownership and leadership for a sustainable, survivor-centered response. The face of my mandate is that of a survivor. Only a survivor-centered approach can promote recovery, resilience and empowerment by prioritizing the survivor’s rights, needs and wishes. This means ensuring that survivors have access to appropriate, high-quality services including sexual and reproductive healthcare; psychosocial support; access to justice and livelihood support, especially in cases where survivors have been rejected by their families and cast out of their communities, owing to harmful social norms such as stigma and victim-blame. I believe that this issue is not exclusively, or even primarily, a UN issue. It is Member States that bear the primary moral and legal responsibility to ensure the protection and welfare of their citizens.
- The third priority is to address the root causes of conflict-related sexual violence, including structural gender-based inequality and discrimination, poverty and marginalization, as the invisible drivers of sexual violence in times of war and peace.
My methodology is to secure commitments to prevent and address sexual violence in line with successive Security Council resolutions, and to anchor these commitments at the highest level through concrete implementation plans and strategies. To date, my Office has signed Joint Communiqués with almost all the African nations that fall within my remit, namely: Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Somalia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence.
The first delisting pursuant to my mandate was that of the armed forces of Côte d’Ivoire in 2017, following their adoption of concrete action plans for the security sector. Continued monitoring and technical assistance are being provided to consolidate these gains, and there have since been no new allegations of sexual violence by the national armed and security forces of Côte d’Ivoire. This provides an instructive case study for other situations.
I must also emphasize that non-State armed groups constitute the majority of credibly suspected perpetrators that are listed in the annual report. Leveraging behavioural change on the part of non-State actors to ensure they comply with international norms is a critical operational challenge for my mandate moving forward. Several such groups have begun to engage in condemning sexual violence by their members, as in South Sudan, Mali and CAR, and we will endeavour to build on this practice in cooperation with Member States. Yet of the 49 parties listed in this year’s report, 36 are non-State actors that have made no commitments to prevent sexual violence, despite most of them having been listed for several years. We must bring added scrutiny and pressure to bear to ensure they cease these violations and prevent their recurrence.
I consider the constructive engagement with African countries, as well as Africa’s regional and sub-regional organizations, to be a critical priority for this mandate. I believe that African countries must play a central role in shaping the policies and direction of the conflict-related sexual violence agenda in the future. To this end, I hope that you will reach out to my Office for information, advocacy resources, and technical expertise in support of your national efforts.
As you are already aware, the United Nations also established a Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, following the adoption of Security Council resolution 1888 in 2009. The purpose of this Team is to serve as a resource at the disposal of Member States to support national institutions to strengthen the rule of law response in addressing conflict-related sexual violence. To date, the Team of Experts is supporting national institutions in Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, Guinea, South Sudan, and Nigeria. This collaboration spans a number of different technical areas, such as support for legislative reform, training and deployment of magistrates to accelerate the prosecution of sexual violence crimes, capacity-building of monitors and investigators, and the protection of victims and witnesses.
Finally, in my capacity as Special Representative, I chair an interagency coordination network, known as UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, composed of 14 UN entities working together for a coherent and comprehensive response. In this capacity, I hope to harness the collective energy of the UN system in support of the efforts of national institutions and stakeholders.
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Excellencies,
Even as we strengthen our collaboration here in New York, it is my intention to engage directly with the African Union when I return to Addisnext month. The primary purpose of this visit is to resume discussions on the implementation of our Framework of Cooperation. At a political level, I will also brief the African Union Peace and Security Council. I take this opportunity to thank the representative of Togo, Chair of the AUPSC in July, for placing this item on the agenda.
In this context, we will explore the possibility of the AU Peace and Security Council convening an annual debate on conflict-related sexual violence to assess progress, share good practices and lessons learnt, and ensure the issue remains high on its agenda. An annual thematic meeting would also provide a platform to mobilize the political and technical support of the AU and its institutions behind Member States that are grappling with this challenge.
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Excellencies,
The African Union, and sub-regional bodies such as the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), have adopted ambitious normative instruments on ending sexual and gender-based violence as part of advancing peace, security and development. Specifically, my Office has collaborated with the ICGLR Police Training Center in Kampala pursuant to a Framework of Cooperation signed in 2013. In addition, the African Union Transitional Justice Policy adopted in February 2019 which sets out strong, practical measures that must be adopted by Member States to ensure effective transitional justice processes, the Guidelines on Combating Sexual Violence and its Consequences in Africa adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in May 2017 in Niger, are important policy documents that should inform our collective approaches.
In conclusion, Your Excellencies, I would note that despite dramatic normative, institutional and operational progress in this agenda over the past decade, much more needs to be done. Conflict-related sexual violence is preventable, not inevitable. If sexual violence can be planned, it can be punished; if it can be commanded or condoned, it can be condemned. Political leadership and political courage will be critical in removing these atrocities from our daily headlines and consigning them, once and for all, to the annals of history. I believe that where there is a political will, there is a way. I look forward to working closely with you all and will continue to seek your valuable perspectives and advice. I firmly believe that our joint efforts can yield tangible results and create a better, brighter future for those affected by this terrible scourge. Ending sexual violence, and the long shadow of fear it casts over countless lives, will empower women to actively shape the destiny of the continent. This is a political, security and justice issue, that demands a sustained political, security and justice response.
Thank you.