The United Nations marked 15 years of its mandate on sexual violence and conflict with a commemoration ceremony held in New York on Wednesday. The mandate was established through Security Council resolution 1888 (2009) which called for appointing a Special Representative to lead UN efforts to address rape during conflict, among other actions.
“It recognized that like bullets, bombs and blades, the widespread systematic use of sexual violence decimates communities, drives displacement and inflicts trauma that echoes across generations,” said Pramila Patten, the UN expert working to eradicate this crime.
Sexual violence in conflict is as old as conflict itself and is used to instill fear, to dominate and to displace populations. Women and girls are disproportionately affected. The commemoration was held amid growing global unrest, with conflicts at their highest since the Second World War. Last year, over 170 conflicts were recorded worldwide and global military expenditure surpassed $2.2 trillion. Today, more than 612 million women and girls live under the shadow of conflict, including in Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti.
Survivors and advocates attending the event shared their testimonies. Lyudmila Huseynova from Ukraine spoke about the torture and sexual violence she endured during more than three years under Russian captivity following the 2014 war in the east. She was kidnapped in 2019 and released in an October 2022 prison exchange. Since then, she has been working with an organization that advocates for Ukrainian women still held by Russia. “There are thousands of them suffering unimaginable horrors, separated from their children, without access to medical or legal aid,” she said through an interpreter.
In paying tribute to survivors, Ms. Patten stressed that they “need decisive action to turn resolutions into results through enhanced service delivery, economic opportunity and access to justice and redress”, but above all they need peace and peace of mind. “No amount of protection, assistance or accountability after the fact is a substitute for peace,” she said.
Source: The UN
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