Kenyan women condemn violence in post-election strife

Progress for Women Is Progress for All

Wartime sexual violence has been one of history's greatest silences. The unanimous adoption of Security Council Resolution 1820 ends - once and for all - the debate about whether systematic sexual violence belongs on the Council agenda. In the words of United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who chaired the debate, "today we respond to that lingering question with a resounding yes".

Never before has sexual violence been so explicitly linked with the maintenance of international peace and security. Long dismissed as the collateral damage of war, systematic rape has become a means of achieving political and military ends. Now more than ever, with civilians increasingly under attack, action is needed.

The resolution signals to past and would-be perpetrators that the world's foremost security institution is watching. It urges sanctions for violations and calls for the Secretary General to report on implementation. To recognise sexual violence as a security issue is to justify a security response. Building upon the earlier Security Council Resolution 1325 (October 2000) on women, peace and security, Resolution 1820 strengthens the focus on prevention, protection and ending impunity.

UNIFEM has helped to shape this agenda from the outset, drawing new attention to the oldest crime of war. In the lead-up to the debate, UNIFEM brought a women's rights activist from Eastern DRC to address the Council in an informal session. She painfully described how sexual violence holds entire communities hostage: women cannot access markets or water-points; children cannot safely get to school. The Council recognised that there can be neither peace nor security so long as communities live under the shadow of sexual terror "as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group". The resolution calls for parties to armed conflict to step up efforts to protect women and girls from targeted attack.

This brings policy into alignment with international law, as reflected in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the evolving jurisprudence of the ad hoc war crimes tribunals. It sends an unequivocal message: there will be no amnesty for sexual violence. This puts the international community squarely on the side of rape survivors, who have long suffered blame and shame in the absence of any formal accountability.

UNIFEM recognises that we cannot stop sexual violence without empowering women. During the Security Council's mission to Africa this month, UNIFEM arranged for women's civil society groups to speak directly with Council members. The impact of these testimonies was echoed in the debate on 19 June.

Sexual violence is a defining characteristic of the changing nature of contemporary conflict and Resolution 1820 shows that the Security Council is responding to this new reality. Sexual violence is a tactic of choice for armed groups - cheaper, more destructive, and easier to get away with than other methods of warfare - until now. This historic resolution raises the political, economic and military cost of such crimes. The Security Council resoundingly recognised that durable peace can never be built on women's silent suffering.

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