Levels of rape and sexual violence against women during conflict are sky-high, but the problem is not receiving much attention. Bitchbuzz covered the issue a couple of months ago, and reported on the UN’s (slow, plodding) efforts to begin to tackle it.
Development charity CARE International is working hard to raise awareness. Around 40 women a day are raped in just one province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which gives an idea of the huge scale of the problem. The use of rape as a weapon spreads fear and insecurity amongst communities and completely ruins the lives of victims.
The charity's work has unearthed some horrific stories. They found one grandmother in the DRC who told them, “My daughter was 17 and the youngest in our family. She met a group of Mai-mai militia - they raped her brutally. When she came back home, she told me what had happened. I went to get her examined and we were told she had become pregnant. The birth was difficult – my daughter died due to complications.”
CARE also spoke to Marie-Claire, 50, who was raped by four men in front of her husband and children. “They took my children and raped them as well, next to my son-in-law’s dead body”, she said.
This month, the UK holds the presidency of the UN Security Council so it’s a good month to badger the UK ambassador, if you happen to be the badgering sort. The Security Council discussed the issue of sexual violence in conflict last week, and Lee Webster, campaigns manager at CARE International, said the discussion was generally positive.
This is what John Sawers, UK representative to the UN, had to say,
“The proliferation of sexual violence against women and girls is in part aimed at marginalising their contribution to society. It degrades the role they can play deliberately in restoring the fabric of peaceful communities.
“More effective monitoring of patterns of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict should allow the Council to identify and mandate the action necessary to prevent it…the time to act is now.”
So there are lots of positive noises being made, but it remains to be seen whether these noises will be translated into anything practical. Lee says she hopes to hear in the coming weeks what measures will be put in place.
In the meantime, we can help put pressure on the UK while it holds the presidency to actually do something. The kind of things CARE wants to see are:
Better coordination: The appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary General on Women, Peace and Security to drive coordination of the system-wide response to sexual violence in armed conflict.
Better access to humanitarian assistance: Basic health and psychosocial care must be implemented for the women, men and children who have survived rape. This assistance is essential to improving prevention and response.
Better prevention: More female military, police and UN staff are needed to encourage female victims of sexual violence to come forward, and there must be an increased mandate and training for UN peacekeepers to intervene in security matters inside camps for displaced people. Addressing underlying causes of sexual and gender-based violence by challenging gender and sexual norms and practices is necessary.
Better data collection: Reliable data is key to addressing sexual violence and ending impunity, but experience shows that the best data is collected while offering safe, confidential humanitarian assistance to affected people.
You can help encourage the UN to take a strong stance on this by going to CARE International’s homepage, and clicking on the box saying “Voices Against Violence”. Or you can go to the UK ambassador’s contact page.