Statement delivered by Ambassador Ranko Vilovic, Charge d'affaires a.i. of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations, on the UN Security Council debate on Women, Peace and Security.
Mr. President,
At the outside, I wish to thank you for organizing this debate under the UK presidency on Women, Peace and Security, with a focus on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1820.
We also express our deep appreciation to the Secretary-General for his first progress report pursuant to this resolution. We view the report as an important initial roadmap for our future work on this issue. We further perceive the Secretary-General's leadership on this issue as vital, to ensure political momentum for resolution 1820 is further galvanized, with a view to urgently addressing outstanding key challenges, which continue to hinder progress in combating sexual violence in conflict-affected situations.
Mr. President,
Adoption of resolution 1820 represented a significant follow-up to the Council's landmark resolution 1325. Under 1820, we expressed our political will to further advance efforts to prevent and respond to the use of sexual violence in conflict-related situations. Croatia has been an ardent supporter of resolution 1820 from its conceptual phase to its ultimate adoption, and we continue to reiterate our full support for its unequivocal implementation. In this respect, we reiterate our call on all parties to armed conflict to strictly adhere to relevant international law.
However, despite the wide-scale support shown for resolution 1820 last year, the Secretary-General's report serves as a painful reminder that its overall implementation remains weak, and that the deliberate and targeted use of sexual violence against women and girls in conflict-affected situations continues to be a key challenge of our time. Furthermore, in certain parts of the world such as in the eastern DRC, widespread and systematic sexual violations are being perpetuated systematically and at such levels with such brutality, that it defies our belief. Additionally disturbing to us, is the increasing trend of uncapped accompanying violations against victims such as their abduction, enforced prostitution and enslavement. The emergence of growing evidence of sexual violence against men and boys in armed conflicts, albeit on a much smaller scale, should not be underestimated nor overlooked in our future considerations on this issue.
Mr. President,
Croatia too bears its own painful memories that sexual violence in conflict-related situations is not a relic of the distant past. Indeed as the Secretary-General points out in his report, we too witnessed first hand the use of rape and sexual violence as a tactic of war during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The particularity of the conflict in our region has been carefully evidenced in the case-law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It included acts of widespread and/or systematic sexual violence inflicted on civilians especially women and girls, often to terrorize and displace populations as a part of organized “ethnic cleansing” campaigns conducted by Serb paramilitary forces in both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another particularly abhorrent practice in our region was the establishment of so-called “rape camps” for abducted women and girls, where mostly Bosnian Muslim but also some Croatian women and girls were repeatedly raped.
Mr. President,
As part of our deliberations today, aimed at strengthening 1820 implementation, we view the report of the Secretary-General as having raised some significant implications for our future work in this area. It highlights important hurdles and gaps which are keeping effective implementation of 1820 elusive and preventing effective change on the ground. In this respect, we appreciate the Secretary-General's candor as to the limitations of certain aspects of his report, especially with regard to the specific concern of collection of information on sexual violence as requested under 1820.
Mr. President,
Today's debate and any possible future outcome, will serve as an important litmus test as to the level of our political determination to strengthen our current efforts in genuinely responding and combating widespread and systematic sexual violence, including the elimination of prevailing impunity in many conflict affected situations.
The Secretary-General in highlighting the urgency and magnitude of the problem, has correctly underscored the need for a multi-sectoral response by the U.N. system that needs to decisively address this problem, by putting in place appropriate mechanisms for more effective protection and assistance for victims and survivors. Here the Security Council has an important role to play. While we welcome measures already taken to date by the U.N. towards implementation of 1820, we see the need for a wider focus than has been the case to date, on 1820 issues within the Council's agenda. Furthermore, the establishment of a regular reporting cycle by the Secretary-General on 1820 will be crucial to this process. Improving the added-value of such inputs, calls for further development of U.N. capacities in strategic collection and analysis of violations against women and girls in conflict situations. Calls for the establishment of a commission of inquiry as outlined in the report, warrant our serious consideration.
Mr. President,
In our view, monitoring of sexual violence can be further strengthened by closer synergies other existing monitoring mechanisms. In this context, Croatia strongly welcomes the adoption this week of resolution 1882 on Children in Armed Conflict, expanding the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism trigger to include rape and other forms of sexual violence. This will not only serve as an important milestone for the children and armed conflict agenda, but also as a valuable complimentary mechanism for monitoring implementation of 1820, especially for young women up to the age of 18. Furthermore, Croatia believes that the revised aide-memoire on the Protection of Civilians including women affected by armed conflict adopted in January, will also facilitate our future efforts towards achieving effective implementation of resolution 1820.
Mr. President,
We also join others who call for more to be done at the field operation level to fill existing gaps, especially through better definition of roles and responsibilities for women protection issues in peacekeeping, peace-building and humanitarian arenas. We continue to urge strengthened female leadership in the field with more female engagement at all levels. Furthermore, if the U.N. is to lead by example, gender equality and respect for women's human rights must be at the centre of all U.N. missions, with strict adherence to the organization's zero tolerance policy on sexual violence.
Mr. President,
While Croatia will be looking to the U.N. system to step up its efforts in implementing relevant recommendations in the report, member states will also have to do their part. More needs to be done to ensure full implementation of member states' commitments pursuant to 1820. Functioning national legal institutions that are underpinned by a strong normative framework ensuring full gender equality and inclusiveness, as well as endorsing women's political, economic and human rights, are imperative to eliminate existing climates of impunity and to act as a strong deterrent for future perpetrators. Greater cooperation between the U.N. and regional mechanisms can be further built upon to support national efforts in this respect. Drawing from lessons learnt in peace-building efforts to date, increasing pools of deployable civilian experts with relevant expertise and appropriate training, particularly from affected regions, in peace building efforts could significantly contribute to overall efforts. Furthermore, the value of national women capacities should not be overlooked in playing a valuable role as powerful advocates to change attitudes on the ground towards victims of rape and sexual violence.
Mr. President,
For hundreds of thousands of women and girls worldwide, time is of the essence. Now is not the time for us to be complacent in our efforts. Croatia hopes that today's debate will pave the way for further timely and concrete measures aimed at bringing about effective implementation of the 1820 agenda.
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