* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Sexual Violence as a weapon of war is not just used to brutalise populations but as part of deliberate and targeted campaigns to torture and ethnically cleanse
Warfare is changing, battles are being conducted in cyberspace and foot soldiers are being recruited in the dark recesses of the internet.
However some things remain the same and that is the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. The scale of sexual violence against civilians in situations of conflict and repression is truly appalling. UN agencies estimate that more than 60,000 women were raped during the civil war in Sierra Leone, more than 40,000 in Liberia and at least 200,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The facts have yet to be established but, reports of up to 64% of the Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh have either witnessed or are themselves survivors of sexual violence. This is deeply disturbing.
Yesterday was the UN day against sexual violence in conflict, and I have been at the UN to reiterate the UK’s commitment to ending this atrocity and to galvanise the General Assembly into recognising the struggles faced by survivors of sexual violence.
We’ve already made good progress. The UN Special Representative Pramila Patten and I visited Iraq in February, to highlight the continued stigma against not only survivors of sexual abuse but their children, who are too often dismissed as “children of hate” (Rwanda), “children of shame” (Kosovo) and, “los paraquitos” (little paramilitaries, Colombia). They are treated appallingly with no access to services or civil rights. During a visit to Mosul, I saw for myself the awful devastation Daesh has had on people’s lives and livelihoods, especially for women and girls, including through sexual slavery and forced marriage.
So how do we bring perpetrators to justice?
In many countries, years of conflict has meant that basic infrastructure has been completely destroyed. And for the survivors of sexual violence, the primary concerns are likely to be food, healthcare, and shelter. Not to mention the stigma they face from their very own communities and the compounding psychological impact this has on them.
As an international community, we must be sensitive to the needs of survivors in our quest for justice. That’s why one of the key things the UK is doing is putting in place psychosocial support for survivors when they tell their harrowing stories. Since 2012, the UK has spent £44 million to support more than 70 projects in 26 countries. UK funding has ensured 13 trials were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the DRC, resulting in 24 convictions and more than 200 survivors receiving judicial reparations. I sent experts to assess the appalling plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Cox’s Bazaar last November ethnically cleansed from Burma (Myanmar). More experts have since travelled there, and more are about to go out to Bangladesh to start the slow, yet crucial, work of building up local capacity to gather evidence of sexual violence to the required international standards for criminal prosecutions. We have also seen our team of PSVI experts deployed more than 90 times to provide support and training on a range of issues from documenting crimes to rehabilitating survivors. This support and assistance has had real impact and is delivering real change on the ground.
The UK has also been leading ground-breaking work to develop the International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual violence in Conflict. This framework sets out internationally recognised guidelines on how countries should collate and investigate sexual violence in conflict, to give survivors the best chance of justice. It is already being used by the International Criminal Court, the UN and in countries as diverse as Syria, Colombia, Burma, DRC, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Uganda to bring people to account.
Sexual Violence as a weapon of war is not just used to brutalise populations but as part of deliberate and targeted campaigns to torture and ethnically cleanse. As a global community we must stand up to the culture of impunity which means that it is depressingly commonplace. We must ensure that survivors are granted the justice they deserve and we must make sure that the children born of the conflict are not condemned to a life of alienation and unfulfilled potential.
Next year, the UK will host an international meeting to mark five years since the Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit. The meeting will seek real commitments from governments and international organisations to accelerate the drive to end impunity; advance justice and accountability; tackle stigma, and develop new ways to prevent and address sexual violence. In 2014, we told the world that it was Time To Act, now is the time to deliver upon that pledge.
Lord Ahmad was appointed as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and as Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the United Nations on 13 June 2017.
