蘑菇视频

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to commend the United Kingdom for shining the spotlight on a largely neglected group of victims, children born of war-time rape, through the launch of this 鈥淐all to Action鈥� to ensure their rights and well-being. This issue has been a critical priority for my mandate since I took office in 2017, and I am pleased to see increased public and political recognition of this long-standing protection gap.

I would like to acknowledge all the speakers and more especially: Ms. D茅sanges Kabuo, poet, advocate and survivor; and Ms. Lejla Damon, an activist driven by her personal experience as a child born of sexual violence to advocate for other children. I applaud their courage in telling their stories in order to galvanize support and highlight the isolation of survivors and persons born of sexual violence in conflict.

These children are acutely vulnerable and face unique immediate and longer-term risks, linked to being born in circumstances of rape in conflict. Children born of wartime rape are rarely accepted by society and often viewed as both a 鈥�bad memory鈥� and a future threat. Across geographic and culturally diverse conflicts and post-conflict situations, children born of rape face great social stigma. They are often marginalised and rejected within and outside families and exposed to a range of physical, psychosocial, economic, cultural and legal risks and harms which include: infanticide, abandonment at birth, statelessness, stigmatisation and discrimination, physical violence and emotional abuse, reduced or no access to education, food insecurity, poverty, homelessness, recruitment to armed or criminal groups, enhanced risk of radicalisation and poor health.

A global protection gap exists for children born of war-time rape with both national and international policymakers having largely overlooked their protection needs – and indeed, their very existence.

For example, in Rwanda, the law governing the Fund for Support and Assistance to Survivors of the Genocide does not recognize children born of rape during the Genocide among those entitled for relief assistance given to needy survivors. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, and many other countries, a child cannot be registered without the father’s name.

Even in Colombia, the only country with a law, namely the Victims and Land Restitution Law of 2011, formally recognizing children born of sexual violence as official victims of the conflict, in practice, such rights have proved more illusory than real. To date, not a single child born of rape, has received reparations. To a significant extent, the shame and stigma faced by both children and their mothers, has proven to be a powerful silencer.

 

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The absence of a clear normative framework offers no guidance or external scrutiny of States鈥� failures to assume their primary responsibilities towards such children. In the meantime, lost childhoods become precarious adulthoods; human rights鈥� claim to universality becomes an illusion and children born of sexual violence continue to be left behind.

In IDP camps in Maiduguri, Goma, Darfur and in Protection of Civilian sites in South Sudan, I聽 聽met with several women with their babies born of rape and saw firsthand how these mothers and their children are set on a trajectory of poverty, discrimination, violence, and mounting obstacles to living a life of dignity. I understood better how the fate of these children is inextricably linked to their mothers.

In Maiduguri, I met many young girls who had been released from captivity with their babies. Having been born in captivity and not knowing their fathers鈥� identity, these children do not have birth registration. The mothers shared with me how they and their children were subjected to constant abuse by other IDPs living in the camp, on account of their 鈥渁ssociation鈥� with 鈥淏oko Haram鈥�.

In Iraq, I visited shelters full of abandoned children and the women shared with me their pain and agony- having had no choice but to abandon their children.

In Cox鈥檚 Bazar, Bangladesh, I met with pregnant women who were distressed about their pregnancy and expressed concerns about birth registration procedures.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, I met with adults who had been born from rape, and realized the extent to which they suffer as a result of their mothers鈥� own stigmatization, social exclusion, and discrimination. Clearly, because the initial violations against the mothers have gone unaddressed and unacknowledged, there has been a cascade of harms, stigma and hardship which have passed from mother to child in an intergenerational cycle of denial of rights and dignity, vulnerability, abuse, and marginalization.

These field missions especially in Nigeria, Iraq and Cox鈥檚 Bazar were an eye opener in terms of better understanding the human and social costs of neglect. It was clear that neglecting this generation will create new isolated groups on the fringes of society that will make them susceptible to indoctrination by future armed and extremist groups.

It was also clear that this issue needs to be addressed now so we can prevent those children from being used in the service of terrorist ideology.

 

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

This continuing phenomenon of children born as a result of rape in armed conflict areas has all the basic ingredients that foster the cycle of terrorism. The children are forced into a life of isolation because there are no policies or institutional mechanisms that allow them to integrate back into the societal fabric.

The security risks are too great to continue to be ignored. An entire generation of children will be considered outcasts and forced to live on the margins of society or forge together social ingredients that foster the vicious cycle of terrorism. Accordingly, since I took office, I have spared no effort to spearhead a series of initiatives to shine the spotlight on this issue.

路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 On 19 June 2018, the focus of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict was 鈥�The Plight and Rights of Children Born of War鈥�. I invited Alen Muhic, a young man from Bosnia who was born of wartime rape, to formally address the United Nations, in order to amplify his first-hand experience.

路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 In October 2018, my Office co-organized an Arria-Formula Meeting on 鈥淧rotecting Children Born of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones鈥�, featuring Evelyn Amony, a former forced wife of Joseph Kony, who gave birth to and raised her children in the harrowing context of LRA captivity.

路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Building on this, in 2019, I marked the 10-year anniversary of the establishment of my mandate through a Survivors鈥� Hearing, which highlighted stigma and poverty as critical challenges to the reintegration of survivors and their children.

路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 We have also raised this issue at the highest levels of Government in the context of securing political commitments. In addition to the 2016 Joint Communiqu茅 between Iraq and the United Nations on the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence which includes a focus on the provision of services, livelihood support and reparations for survivors and children born of rape, the Framework of Cooperation which I signed with the Government of the Sudan in March 2020, also highlighted the importance of reintegration of survivors and their children born of rape.

路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The interagency network 蘑菇视频 Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, that I Chair, has also funded projects supporting survivors and children born of sexual violence in settings such as Iraq and Somalia.

I am pleased to say that my advocacy initiatives informed the development of Security Council resolution 2467 of 2019, which recognized for the first time that children born from sexual violence have rights both connected and distinct from their mothers. Resolution 2467 specifically mandated a Special Report of the Secretary-General on women and girls who become pregnant as a result of sexual violence and children born of such violence, which my Office is currently preparing in collaboration with all relevant United Nations partners.

This special report, to be issued by the end of the year, is anchored in evidence-based United Nations reporting from 24 field settings and focuses on conflicts since the 1990s to the present. The report aims to identify the most pressing needs facing these mothers and their children, whose fate and welfare are often inextricably linked; best practices by the United Nations, national authorities and civil society organizations to provide support, redress and stigma alleviation; and will make concrete recommendations to policy-makers, Member States, and regional bodies to deliver assistance, support socioeconomic reintegration, and accelerate the painfully slow pace of justice.

I must add that the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women with which I have signed Frameworks of Cooperation, have also issued a joint statement on 19 November, outlining States鈥� obligations under these conventions with respect to survivors who become pregnant, and the children born of sexual violence. This statement will also inform the Secretary-General鈥檚 recommendations and ensure that all monitoring, reporting and response activities are both child-sensitive and gender-sensitive in approach and more importantly rights-based.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is so much horror in these crimes. Yet there is also resilience in the human stories of survivors and children born of sexual violence in conflict, as we will hear today.

The special report being prepared by my Office will set out a platform of strategic recommendations, based on input from the field and consultations across the 蘑菇视频 system, that will unlock the potential of strategic humanitarian, human rights, peace, security and development initiatives in this area. These recommendations have the potential not only to improve individual lives and livelihoods, but ultimately to contribute to social cohesion, reconciliation, and lasting peace.

Bridging the global protection gap and remedying this human rights failure is critical to achieving dignity, meaningful and inclusive peace, reconciliation and justice for all.

I believe that with our support, children born of rape in war can survive and thrive. They can overcome the horrific circumstances of their birth, and have the hope of a brighter future in which they are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve and their human rights respected and protected.

The 鈥淐all to Action鈥� being launched today is so timely as it can provide considerable impetus to this work and help to take our efforts to scale, including by strengthening legal and policy frameworks, and ensuring this historically voiceless category of war victims is not 鈥渓eft behind鈥� in sustainable development approaches.

Thank you.