Distinguished Members of the Security Council, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the Government of Malta for its strategic leadership in convening this Open Debate.
I warmly welcome the participation of Ms. Niemat Ahmadi, founder of the Darfur Women Action Group, and commend her steadfast activism and commitment to the cause of peace. As we mark the grim milestone of one year since the resurgence of hostilities in the Sudan, her tireless advocacy has helped to sustain a spotlight on the horrific patterns of conflict-related sexual violence exacerbated by the proliferation of arms.
I further welcome the participation of UN Goodwill Ambassador, Ms. Danai Gurira, who has powerfully lent her voice to this agenda.
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We meet today to consider the 15th annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence at a time when gender equality gains are being rolled back, even as militarization is being bankrolled at unprecedented levels; at a time when the world’s resources are being used to feed the flames of conflict, while women and children starve; at a time when military spending has soared to over 2.2 trillion USD, while humanitarian aid budgets have been slashed; and at a time when weapons continue to flow into the hands of perpetrators, while the vast majority of victims remain empty-handed in terms of reparations and redress.
We meet at a time when the pursuit of peace and gender equality has once again become a radical act. The essential, existential task we face is to silence the guns and amplify the voices of women as a critical constituency for peace.
Yet, right now, in the Sudan and Haiti, women and girls are being brutalized and terrorized by sexual violence committed at gunpoint. In Afghanistan, the systematic assault on, and erasure of, women and their rights is destroying lives and livelihoods. Two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thousands of displaced and refugee women and girls face a heightened risk of being preyed upon by traffickers. In the Middle East, women and girls are disproportionately affected by the ongoing bloodshed, displacement, trauma and terror: they are among the many victims of the 7th of October attacks on Israel by Hamas, and they comprise more than half of the victims of the relentless bombing of Gaza, which has shattered the healthcare system, leaving survivors of gender-based violence, pregnant women, and others in desperate need with nowhere to turn.
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The report before us today provides a global snapshot of incidents, patterns and trends of conflict-related sexual violence across 21 situations of concern. It records 3,688 UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence committed in the course of 2023, reflecting a dramatic increase of 50 per cent as compared with the previous year. This spike in recorded cases is particularly alarming in a global context where humanitarian access remains severely restricted and constrained.
In 2023, women and girls accounted for 95 per cent of the verified cases, with 5 per cent recorded against men and boys. In 32 per cent of these cases, the victims were children, with the vast majority being girls (98 per cent). Twenty-one cases were found to target lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex persons on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. While the report conveys the severity and brutality of UN-sourced and verified incidents, it does not purport to reflect the global scale or prevalence of this chronically underreported, historically hidden crime. We know that for every survivor who comes forward, many others are silenced by social pressures, stigma, insecurity, the paucity of services, and the limited prospects for justice. Nearly half of the UN-verified cases presented in the report (43 per cent) were verified in settings where Women Protection Advisers were deployed to convene the Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, mandated by this Council through resolution 1960 of 2010. For the first time this year, Women Protection Advisers have also been deployed to a non-mission setting, in line with resolution 2467 of 2019, namely to Ukraine. In addition, the first regional-level Women Protection Adviser was deployed in 2023, to deepen engagement with the African Union and to monitor transborder dynamics and dimensions of the issue across the Horn of Africa.
This year’s report includes, for the first time, a dedicated section on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territory. Following the 7th of October attacks by Hamas, other armed groups and armed civilians, I visited Israel at the invitation of the Government. My team and I confirmed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in at least three locations, and that sexual violence has been committed against individuals held as hostages and may be ongoing. Regarding the occupied West Bank, according to UN-verified information, the arrests and detention of Palestinian women and men by Israeli security forces, following the 7th of October attacks, have often been accompanied by ill-treatment, including forms of sexual violence. Similar allegations have emerged from Gaza. These findings in no way justify or legitimize further hostilities, and I continue to echo the calls of the Secretary-General for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the unspeakable suffering of Palestinian civilians and to bring about the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
In terms of global trends, the report documents how sexual violence has curtailed women’s access to livelihoods and girls’ access to education, amid record levels of internal and cross-border displacement. Women and girls face heightened levels of sexual violence in displacement settings, as returnees, refugees and migrants. For instance, in eastern DRC, the climate of interlinked physical and food insecurity has driven many displaced women and girls into prostitution out of sheer economic desperation. In Ethiopia, reports surfaced of sexual exploitation in exchange for food, as well as continued sexual enslavement in Tigray, in proximity to the compounds and barracks of arms bearers. Moreover, in many contexts, women with children born of wartime rape are often accused of affiliation with the enemy, excluded from community networks, and plunged into poverty. By contrast, sexual violence perpetrated with impunity remains profitable in the political economy of war. Conflict-driven trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation continues to generate profits for armed and violent extremist groups. In Haiti, armed groups and criminal gangs continue to generate revenue through kidnapping, using the threat of sexual violence to extort ever-higher ransoms. Sexual violence remains part of the repertoire of political repression, used to intimidate and punish opponents, and as a tactic to silence women actively participating in public and political life, notably in Libya and Yemen. The report further records a discernible trend of digital threats in Myanmar, where online harassment and hate speech specifically targeted women associated with the resistance movement, and included the release of sexually explicit images and incitement to violence.
This year’s report highlights an unprecedented level of lethal violence used to silence survivors in the wake of sexual assault. In 2023, reports of rape victims being subsequently killed by their assailants surfaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, demonstrating the need to strengthen forensic capabilities, investigations, and accountability processes that ensure the protection of victims and witnesses. Frontline service providers and women human rights defenders were not spared. Armed actors threatened healthcare workers in Sudan, and reprisals against human rights defenders were reported in South Sudan, the DRC and elsewhere. Across time and space, we see that the availability of weapons directly facilitates these attacks. Between 70 and 90 per cent of conflict-related sexual violence incidents involve the use of a weapon, in particular firearms, according to United Nations research.
- In eastern DRC, the threat of rape at gunpoint remains a horrific daily reality that overshadows the lives of women and girls, impeding their essential livelihood and sustenance activities. During one incursion into a village, fighters from an armed militia gang-raped 11 women, looted their belongings, and set fire to their homes. Four of the women were mutilated and killed. The seven survivors were taken to a health center, but left without medical treatment, as the clinic had been burnt and raided;
- In the Central African Republic, women and girls tending farms and fields face the persistent risk of rape by roving armed actors in the area;
- In Haiti, women and girls travelling to work or school face the risk of collective rape by gang members armed with weapons largely trafficked from abroad.
The accelerated withdrawals of peace operations from Mali and the Sudan have brought issues of transition and exit to the fore. Weapons management strategies are a critical part of preventing the occurrence and recurrence of conflict-related sexual violence in such settings. In 2023, I visited the border area between Sudan and South Sudan, where women and girls have been targeted for rape, gang rape and abduction on the basis of their ethnicity, with the perpetrators emboldened by entrenched impunity. Since the resurgence of conflict in the Sudan, I have engaged with both parties listed in the Annex to the annual report, namely the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). These parties are required to take specific measures to prevent and address sexual violence. Moreover, all States must abide by the sanctions imposed by this Council, notably the arms embargo on Darfur, as part of efforts to achieve a comprehensive and sustainable peace.
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Excellencies, Distinguished Council Members,
The report before us today lists 58 parties that are credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of sexual violence in situations on this Council’s agenda, the vast majority of them being non-State actors. Over 70 per cent of listed parties are “persistent perpetrators”, meaning they have appeared on the list for five or more years without taking the requisite remedial or corrective action. It is critical to ensure coherence between the list of implicated parties and the measures imposed by UN sanctions regimes. We must use these tools to stop the flow of weapons into the hands of perpetrators of sexual violence. There could be no more direct and effective way to disarm the weapon of rape and, ultimately, to prevent and eradicate these crimes.
In terms of access to justice, far too many perpetrators of wartime sexual violence still walk free, while women and girls walk in fear. Left unchecked, these crimes set back both the cause of gender equality and the cause of peace. However, recent momentum in relation to transitional justice processes offers some glimmers of hope. For instance:
- the extension of Special Criminal Court proceedings in the Central African Republic until 2028, and the decision by the Appeals Chamber to uphold a 2022 conviction for sexual violence by an armed group leader on the basis of command responsibility;
- the opening of “Macro Case 11” in Colombia by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in September 2023 to investigate sexual and gender-based violence, including when committed on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity; and
- the approval by the Government of Iraq, in June 2023, to release 12 million USD to implement the Yazidi Survivors Law, pursuant to which some 1,600 applications for compensation have been approved, benefitting Yazidi, Turkmen, Shabak and Christian women who were held in captivity by Da’esh.
In each of these cases, my Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict assisted the national judicial authorities, as well as providing technical support in other relevant contexts, including Guinea, Libya and Ukraine. Urgent funding is needed for the Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Multi-Partner Trust Fund, which supports the work of both my Team of Experts and the interagency coordination network that I Chair, UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict. Moreover, Women’s Protection Advisers are a linchpin of our operational response, and their capacity must be consolidated and reinforced, including at critical moments of mission transitions and drawdowns.
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Illicit arms flows have a chilling effect on women’s ability to mobilize for peace. Less than one-third of voices heard in arms control and disarmament forums are those of women. This glaring gender imbalance reflects women’s continued lack of influence over the peace and security processes that affect their lives. Robust frameworks are in place, such as the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (2001) and the Arms Trade Treaty (2013). Yet, to date, no Member State has publicly denied the export of arms or ammunition on the grounds that they could be used to commit or facilitate sexual and gender-based violence, though these instruments require a systematic assessment of that risk.
In terms of the way forward, the report before us recommends targeted action to curtail the flow of weapons by ensuring:
- full implementation of relevant legislative and policy frameworks;
- gender-responsive disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) strategies and security sector reform (SSR), through effective oversight, accountability, vetting, training, codes of conduct, and efforts to hardwire gender equality into their work;
- sustaining gains made in terms of DDR and SSR during periods of transition and mission drawdown, particularly with respect to regulating the destabilizing accumulation and misuse of small arms and light weapons; and
- ensuring the meaningful participation of affected communities, human rights defenders and civil society representatives in all peace and security processes, including those related to arms transfers and exports, which have classically been gender-blind. It is time to declare zero tolerance for all-male delegations and deliberations in the security sector. Almost a quarter of a century since the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000), women’s inclusion must be understood as an obligation, not merely an aspiration.
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Excellencies,
Today we know more than ever before about the factors that either enable or restrain the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence. We know that illicit weapons cast a long shadow over the lives of innocent civilians, while emboldening those who seek to spread fear and pursue criminal aims. Today’s debate brings into focus the need to better align the CRSV and arms control agendas, as part of prevention and risk mitigation. We cannot condemn the perpetrators of sexual violence in our speeches, while continuing to fund and arm them through our supply chains.
For decades, we have heard survivors of conflict-related sexual violence say: “that man had the gun, and he had the power”. Recently, we documented the case of a 19-year-old Haitian woman in Cité Soleil, accosted by masked men who put a gun to her neck, dragged her into a field, and raped and beat her, while pressuring her to confess an association with men she did not even know. In 2023, the UN documented the case of a 60-year-old woman in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, who was gang-raped at gunpoint by three soldiers while hiding in a field near her home. A frontline service-provider in Unity State, South Sudan, reported to my Office: “the youth are now accustomed to carrying weapons wherever they go…those who have weapons are the ones threatening people and perpetrating sexual violence, making disarmament a key step in prevention”. Indeed, we cannot address sexual violence without shifting power dynamics. Starting today, we need women in the room, weapons under regulation and embargo, money for human rights defenders on the table, and change on the ground. This includes supporting the courageous civil society activists who speak truth to power wielded at gunpoint, never allowing threats to silence them. In this respect, we must be on guard against any cynical recourse to suppression and exclusion, supposedly in the name of “protection” – the aim of this agenda is participation and rights, not paternalism and control.
Women in the war-torn corners of our world need to see hope on the political horizon. Our words, deeds and decisions in this Chamber and beyond must give them cause for hope and must contribute to peace with justice, peace with gender equality, peace with dignity and development, peace that endures.
Thank you.
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