LONDON (AlertNet) - Sexual violence, including rape, is a "repugnant" and increasingly common weapon of war that the international community has failed to prevent, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday.
In its "State of World Population 2010" report, the agency said women caught up in many conflicts are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from sexual assault.
"The immediate toll (sexual violence) takes extends far beyond its direct victims, insidiously tearing apart families and shattering societies for generations to come," UNFPA's executive director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, said.
"As an international community we have not been able to prevent this crime and human rights violation," she told a news conference in London.
The UNFPA report was published ahead of the 10th anniversary of U.N. Security Council resolution 1325, which calls for women and girls in conflicts to be protected from rape, as well as for women to be more involved in negotiating peace agreements.
Yet a decade on, only some 20 countries are putting in place plans to implement the resolution.
"BREAKING CIVILIAN WILL"
In a foreword to the report, Obaid said conflict has become less about soldiers fighting each other and more about combatants "breaking the will of civilians" in a struggle for control of territory within their own borders.
The report comes two weeks after U.N. peacekeepers captured a rebel commander they accuse of being behind the rape of over 300 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an area plagued by Rwandan Hutu insurgents and Mai Mai militia who have lingered in the mineral-rich region since Congo's 1998-2003 war.
The attack, which took place in August, sparked international outcry and criticism of the U.N. force in Congo, known as MONUSCO, for failing to prevent the mass rape which took place just 20 miles (30 km) from a U.N. base.
It also focused attention on what has been dubbed the "rape capital of the world". MONUSCO head Roger Meece has said more than 15,000 people were raped in eastern Congo last year.
But it's not just conflict that puts women at greater risk of sexual violence. The UNFPA report says women and girls are vulnerable in the aftermath of natural disasters too, such as the earthquake in Haiti, when men are often absent.
It also highlights grassroots efforts to bolster women's rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haiti, Jordan, Liberia, Uganda and Congo, among others.
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