PHM-Exch> UN experts tackle ‘conspiracy of silence’ over sexual violence in wartime

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at gmail.com>
crossposted from: "[gender-cedaw-vn discussion group]" <
gender-cedaw-vn at anu.edu.au>, "[health-vn discussion group]" <
health-vn at anu.edu.au>

I know that wartime sexual violence can be almost as devastating
for the helpless witness as for the helpless victim. Recovering
from such experiences may take decades, if then.


http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31258&Cr=sexual+violence&Cr1=

UN experts tackle ‘conspiracy of silence’ over sexual violence in wartime


Leymah Gbowee, Executive Director of the Women Peace and Security Network
Africa
Organization

24 June 2009 – Women’s rights activists, senior military figures and top
United
Nations officials met in New York this week to discuss what the world body’s
former humanitarian chief Jan Egeland described as “one of the biggest
conspiracies of silence in history” – the use of sexual violence as a weapon
of war.

The talks focused particularly on the lack of female involvement in peace
negotiations, and on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1820,
passed last year, which for the first time acknowledged the use of sexual
violence in conflict as a deliberate tactic of war.

According to the UN’s agency for women, UNIFEM, women comprise on average
less
than 10 per cent of peace negotiators and less than 2 per cent of mediators.
Out
of approximately 300 peace agreements reached in 45 conflicts since the end
of
the Cold War, only 10 peace processes even mentioned sexual violence.

Anne-Marie Goetz of UNIFEM told a news conference that among the key
principles
endorsed by participants in this week’s talks were that sexual violence
should
be addressed right from the start of the mediation process, and that crimes
of
sexual violence should be given the same priority as other international
crimes.

“This kind of meeting backs up the quest for justice,” said Leymah Gbowee of
the
organization Women, Peace and Security Africa, who participated in the
talks.
“It emboldens mediators and gains greater respect for women’s groups, which
the
parties to peace talks can often ignore.” She added that resolution 1820
“changed the dynamic at the peace table and legitimized the status of
women.”

Ms. Gbowee said the opportunity to brief the Security Council on the results
of
the conference would serve to create awareness of sexual violence as a
weapon of
war among Member States, who she said might be inclined to see rape during
wartime as a social or a humanitarian problem rather than a military issue.

She added that the presence of senior military officers, including
Major-General
Patrick Cammaert, a former commander with the UN peacekeeping mission in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), was particularly effective in raising
awareness that sexual violence was often used as a deliberate and systematic
military strategy.

Ms. Gbowee spoke forcefully of the barriers to women’s participation in
mediation processes, including the fear that addressing sexual violence
would
prevent the smooth running of peace talks, since the negotiating parties
might
be seriously implicated.

Recalling her own role in leading the women’s peace movement that helped
bring
Liberia’s stalled peace process to a successful conclusion in 2003, she
added:
“I am proud of the role women played… but one of my greatest regrets is that
we
did not use this opportunity to raise our own issues and demand prosecution
for
perpetrators of sexual violence.”
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