Sexual Violence/Civilians'n Conflict

Independent Films, Women, Web Series

Women as targets and not just collateral damage in conflict: UN Security Council meets to facilitate reporting of violators by Secretary General - Bosnia & Congo focus - Link to Amb. Muhamed Sacirbey article: http://diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/women-as-targets-rather-than-spoils-of-war-icc-rome-statute-takes-aim-by-ambassador-mo/16948

Women as Targets Rather than "Spoils of War"? ICC Rome Statute Takes Aim - by Ambassador mo
"Boys Will Be Boys?"
Conflict has been for centuries depicted as men fighting men, and women were too frequently seen as the prize or spoils of war to be done with as the victor desires, from sexual abuse to slaughter. The too happy image of victorious males marauding through villages and towns with a women slung over the shoulder like war's bounty blurred the reality. The treatment of women is not a byproduct of "boys will be boys" behavior by men. Rather, too frequently the women (and children) are the direct,the strategic targets, especially if the objective is ethnic cleansing/genocide.
International Criminal Court consultations at United Nations HQ
The Rome Conference in 1998 to establish the ICC.

Transcripts / Production notes / Scripts

Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General:
“Today’s resolution gives us sharper tools and sharper ‘teeth’ in the fight against sexual violence. It gives me a mandate to list, in my reports on this question, parties who commit such acts. It challenges the UN system to provide better information. And it reaffirms the Council’s commitment to adopting sanctions against perpetrators.”

Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“Today’s meeting is in many ways a first. It is not merely a reiteration or renewal of commitments. Rather, it is a decisive step towards a comprehensive monitoring and accountability architecture, aimed to shatter the vicious cycle of impunity for wartime sexual violence.”

Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“This new structure will help to ensure that mass rape is never again met with mass impunity. Instead of serving as a cheap and silent tactic of war, sexual violence will be a liability for armed groups. It will expose their superiors to increased international scrutiny and pressure, seal off the corridors of power and close all exits to those who commit command or condone such acts. And this will reinforce the line between a commander and a criminal.

The Security Council today (16 December) approved a resolution that could enable the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General to list armed groups proven to engage in deliberate acts of sexual violence in his reports.

Addressing Council members, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the resolution “gives us sharper tools and sharper ‘teeth’ in the fight against sexual violence.”

The resolution lists steps perpetrators must take to end the practice and avoid future shaming, as well as indicated that using rape as a weapon of war can lead to sanctions.

Talking after Ban, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallström called the resolution “a decisive step towards a comprehensive monitoring and accountability architecture, aimed to shatter the vicious cycle of impunity for wartime sexual violence.”

Wallström, who was appointed early this year, had spent most of her current term travelling to countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Bosnia and Herzegovina to examine what political and legal measures have been taken to bring perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.

Earlier this year, the UN Population Fund reported that more than 8,000 women were raped in the DRC during fighting between warring factions last year.

Wallström added that with this new resolution “instead of serving as a cheap and silent tactic of war, sexual violence will be a liability for armed groups.”

Tags

• Sexual violence in conflict
• Un Security Council
• bosnia
• congo

Directors:

• Muhamed Sacirbey, UNTV

Producers:

• Susan Sacirbey