Rape as 'weapon of war' condemned by top UN women

Sexual violence against women is taking place “on a massive scale” in wars and in countries emerging from conflict and the international response remains inadequate, one of the UN’s highest-ranking women told the UN Security Council.

It’s been four years since the council adopted a landmark UN resolution committing governments to protect women from the abuses of war.

But Thoraya Obaid, who heads the UN Population Fund, said: “Most women in conflict and post-conflict situations continue to experience little peace and little security."

Obaid was among the toughest in condemning world leaders for adopting standards and guidelines to protect women but doing little to turn words into action.

“From Afghanistan to Liberia, from Colombia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from Burundi to Darfur – the list goes on and on – women and girls, and even men and boys, are being subject to sexual violence, torture and slavery that defy the imagination and bring into sharp focus the cruelty that human beings can inflict on each other,” Obaid said.

Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged the Security Council “to use all its influence to generate the political will, as well as the financial support, to protect women’s rights and ensure women’s access to justice”.

Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women, said the international community now realize that rape and other violence against women are used as weapons of war, and the International Criminal Court has included rape in its list of war crimes.

But gender-based sex crimes are still carried out in conflicts, often with impunity, she said.

Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno noted that women constitute only 1% of military personnel in UN peacekeeping operations and that ”peace processes and negotiations remain overwhelmingly male-dominated arenas.”

Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and humanitarian personnel is also far too widespread, he said, citing about 70 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against UN peacekeeping personnel this year just in the Congolese city of Bunia.