Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

The United Nations is admitting its ''collective failure'' to curb the spiralling violence against women and young girls in conflict and post-conflict situations worldwide.

Despite the adoption of a Security Council resolution four years ago calling for the protection of women, gender-based violence has continued to grow recently in politically-troubled countries such as Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), former Yugoslavia and Sudan. ''While sexual and gender-based violence is by no means a new phenomenon, it is a relatively new issue for the United Nations,'' says Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). ''And the U.N. system is clearly grappling to devise a coherent and effective response,'' she added in a statement before the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has repeatedly warned that the world body has ''zero tolerance'' for sexual violence, says there has been too much rhetoric and too little action. ''The facts on the ground point to our collective failure in preventing such violence and protecting women and girls from the horrors of gender-based violence and heinous violations of international human rights, criminal and humanitarian law,'' Annan said Thursday. Obaid said although it has been four years since the Security Council adopted the ''historic" resolution on women, peace and security, ''yet, most women in conflict and post-conflict situations continue to experience little peace and little security.'' The situation has deteriorated so far that the 15-member Security Council held a special meeting Thursday -- under the presidency of the United Kingdom -- to find ways to strengthen the U.N. response to the growing violence.

The increase in brutality -- including rape, killings, torture and the burning of homes -- has been attributed to several factors, including the paucity of women peacekeepers in U.N. peacekeeping missions and the absence of women in post-conflict peace talks. ''The number of women who participate in formal peace processes remains small,'' Annan said in a 26-page report released here. ''The leadership of parties to conflict is male-dominated and men are chosen to participate at the peace table,'' he added. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged the Security Council to ensure the 191 member states comply with resolutions that obligate them to: protect women and girls during conflict; ensure the equal participation of women in peace negotiations, as well as in conflict prevention; ensure access to justice for women; and to integrate a gender perspective into all peacekeeping and humanitarian activities. ''I urge the council to combat impunity for gender-based violence by advocating training of security forces and law enforcement agencies in accordance with international humanitarian law and human rights law, and in particular, women's rights,'' Arbour told delegates.

There are bright spots in the world body's efforts to protect women and girls, including a hike in the number of gender advisers in U.N. peacekeeping missions -- from two in 2000 to 10 today. Also, the Government of Belgium is funding the first national comprehensive integrated response to sexual violence in a conflict country, in this case the DRC. Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), says the international community is now fully aware that rape and other forms of violence against women are systematically deployed as a weapon of war. In places such as Haiti and Timore-Leste, she said, rape has been used to punish wives and female sympathisers of the enemy. ''And in many wars and conflicts, rape has been used as a way of humiliating the men of the other side, infecting women with HIV/AIDS, forcing them into sexual slavery and destroying women's ability to revitalise their communities,'' Heyzer told delegates.

Obaid said that one of the most devastating consequences of sexual violence has been the transmission of HIV/AIDS. In Rwanda, two-thirds of women who were raped during the 1994 genocide were infected with HIV and ''they are dying slow painful deaths from AIDS,'' she said. ''And they need anti-retroviral therapy.'' The unchecked violence against women has also been criticised by human rights activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). ''Women have recognised that the social, environmental, health and psychological consequences of war are irreversible, and that to prevent the scourge of war, the United Nations must never rationalise wars as being 'legal' or 'just','' says Joan Russow of the Canada-based Global Compliance Research Project, a group that monitors governments and NGOs so they meet their obligations through the U.N. system. Russow said women are ubiquitously present as victims and as pawns in post-conflict situations but conspicuously absent in decision making related to peace negotiations in post-conflict areas.

As far back as the U.N. women's conference in 1985 in Nairobi, she told IPS, member states affirmed, ''equality is important for development and peace because national and global inequities perpetuate themselves and increase tensions of all types''. ''Yet, in 2004, commitment to gender equality in the prevention of conflict is still at the level of rhetoric. The commitment to prevention has been misconstrued and collapsed into pre-emption, and women's participation has been at best only tokenism,'' she added. Women throughout the years have deplored the inequitable distribution of resources, particularly the waste of resources on militarism, and called for the implementation of years of commitments to reallocate military expenses to further global social justice, and conflict prevention, Russow said.

The London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International said its 'Stop Violence Against Women' campaign, launched early this year, is aimed at highlighting the responsibility of the state, community and individual to act to stop violence against women and girls and end impunity for perpetrators of such brutality. ''Our research to date shows no reduction in this phenomenon. Rather, we are currently witnessing horrific levels of gender-based violence committed with impunity against women and girls in many conflict-affected countries, which the U.N. secretary-general says has reached 'almost epidemic proportions','' Amnesty said in a statement released Thursday.

Since the adoption of the original resolution in October 2000, it added, less than 20 percent of Security Council resolutions have included language on women or gender. Heyzer said U.N. peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel have a special obligation not to violate the trust that women and girls place in them. In an oblique reference to recent allegations of rape and sexual violence by peacekeepers and humanitarian workers, she added, ''means must be developed to enhance responsibility and accountability of U.N. peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel for proper behaviour vis-í -vis the female population in deployed areas.'' ''We have to keep our house in order, if we expect others to do so,'' Heyzer told the Security Council.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.