Women's empowerment key to end sexual violence

As the great moral issue of our time, sexual violence in conflict is used to terrorise, displace and subjugate victims, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue told the Security Council on April 15, urging the body to take action to deal with this growing threat.

“The history of warzone rape has been a history of denial. It is time to bring these crimes, and those who commit them, into the spotlight of international scrutiny” Zainab Hawa Bangura said as she presented to Council members the Secretary-General's 2015 report on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Stressing that the time has come “to send a clear message that the world will not tolerate the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war and terror,” she told Council members that the text before them today served not only as an annual report of record, “but as a global advocacy instrument and vehicle for refining our common understanding of critical themes, to enhance coordination and build global consensus.”

“For the first time, (the report) articulates how sexual violence is integrally linked with the strategic objectives, ideology and finding of extremist groups, noting therefore that women's empowerment and sexual violence prevention should be central to international response,” she explained.

The annual report sheds light on a number of new themes, including a list of 45 parties, mostly armed groups, suspected of committing sexual violence as a tactic to terrorise. It also links sexual violence in conflict with forced dispossession of land and property and the denial of women to vital sources of livelihood.

It also highlights the vulnerability and targeting of ethnic and religious minorities, including LGBTI individuals by armed groups, who are keen on imposing morality and exert social control.

Compiled by Law Desk.