Event to declare a global commitment to end sexual violence in conflict (Time to Act)

This is an important, maybe crucial initiative, at a time when we are often faced with an almost unimaginable indifference towards victims of sexual violence in conflict. This is why I want to salute Philomena. It was extremely brave of you, Philomena – I don't know where you are now, but it was extremely brave of you that you came here, and that you said what you had to say. I know there is much more to do and you should go out and do it.

In my part of Europe there were a lot of women – mostly women, but not only women – who in the past, or twenty years ago, were victims of sexual violence… that doesn’t even sound as horrible as rape – victims of rape, and lived through experiences that changed their lives forever on many different levels, including one which for me is probably the most horrifying. It is summed up in a sentence that I heard from a woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina who was a victim of rape – before she testified about her experience, she said: now that my family has forgiven me, I can testify.

This I think in a nutshell shows the complexity and the horror of sexual violence in wartime and the consequences that it has for its victims. Because victims of all other kinds of violence automatically have at least solidarity and sympathy of their own communities, while victims of sexual violence are very often excluded from their communities because they are somehow seen as being partly responsible for what happened. 

And this is probably a fight we have to take to every corner of the world to make sure that perpetrators of this violence are among the worst war criminals that could be and sexual violence is definitely among the worst war crimes that could be committed, and it should be treated as such. And it should be explained over and over again that people who commit these crimes should be treated as war criminals and will be prosecuted to the end of the world.

The issue of sexual violence should also be approached in a much more structured way because if we are to prosecute the war criminals who commit these crimes we have to have clear standards of collecting evidence, storing evidence, presenting evidence, prosecution and compensation.

When you come to compensation, the countries start to get jittery, especially countries that had wars in the last 20-30 years. But it is extremely important to emphasize this element of compensation because that makes the entire society responsible to treat sexual violence, rape as war crime as bad if not worse than any other, and as war crime that cannot under any circumstances be overlooked or be passed over with impunity.

So it is important that together with our declaration today – which I think is very important and I think we should absolutely make sure that it reaches all corners of the world – it is very important that we also set standards for collecting the data, structuring this data, presenting it and making s standard procedure for prosecution of rape as war crime.

As far as Croatia is concerned we will contribute to this effort as much as we can, including introducing a piece of legislation that is just been introduced to include compensation for victims of rape during war. And just to support Philomena, I have here two books that are based on people who have suffered rape during the wars in the Balkans, testimonies of these people, and the other is also a testimony - it is a novel but it is based on real life testimonies of people who have been raped during the wars in the Balkans.

Thank you.