蘑菇视频

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honored to address the New York City Bar Association on International Women鈥檚 Day at the Third Annual International Law Conference on the Status of Women. I am also humbled to be amongst the honorees of the Epiq Women Organizations Award for 2022. The New York City Bar Association鈥檚 commitment to international affairs and cooperation, human rights, and gender justice, makes it truly a world leader for those like me who practice law, demonstrating what local bar associations can do to ensure a commitment to the rule of law at local, national, and global levels.

Now more urgently than ever before, we need that commitment to multilateralism, the rule of law, and gender equality. Today鈥檚 International Women鈥檚 Day comes at a time of great global turbulence, marked by multiple, intersecting crises, in which women鈥檚 rights and physical and economic security are under threat. As the Secretary-General has rightly stated: 鈥淭he world is too small for so many hotspots鈥�.

Over the past year, my mandate has monitored the conflict in Tigray, Ethiopia, which has resulted in women being driven from their homes by violence, including rape and gang-rape, often committed at gun point, with a level of cruelty beyond comprehension. Our attention was also focused on women in Afghanistan who must navigate the new reality of Taliban rule under the most perilous humanitarian circumstances, which has turned back the clock on women鈥檚 rights.

We have seen global pandemic recovery intersect with an epidemic of coups at an unprecedented level in modern times from Myanmar to Sudan, where sexual violence has been reported including against peaceful women protestors, and in Mali and Guinea where justice processes for sexual violence survivors have faced setbacks and delays.

I have recently called upon the parties to the conflict in Ukraine to ensure the protection of women and girls from sexual violence, including the hundreds of thousands displaced both internally and to third countries, in accordance with international humanitarian law and Security Council resolutions.

And conflict continues to march on in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, South Sudan, and elsewhere.

Century after century, women have been treated as the 鈥榮poils of war鈥�. Since time immemorial, rape has been used to control women鈥檚 sexuality, labor and reproduction; to shred the social fabric; to conquer territories and populations; and to crush the enemy鈥檚 morale and will to resist. From the wars of antiquity to the complex security landscape of the 21st century, 鈥榣ooting, pillage and rape鈥� remains the trilogy of wartime terror. The effects are magnified when the perpetrators hold positions of power, which further erodes trust and confidence in governance institutions. Historically, mass rape has been met with mass impunity, barely receiving a line in war reporting or courts martial. In male-dominated security discourse, rape was ranked lowest on the 鈥榟ierarchy of wartime horrors鈥�, as a 鈥榣esser evil鈥� relative to the lethal violence of the battlefield. It was dismissed as 鈥榗ultural and collateral鈥� rather than criminal. A 鈥榩rivate tragedy鈥� rather than a tactic. A 鈥榮ide issue鈥� rather than a threat to our collective security.

Since the conflicts of the early 1990s, in the Balkans and Rwanda, and the work of feminist groups, a new policy consensus has emerged. Today, sexual violence is less tolerated and more regulated. It is less silenced, and more systematically reported. More diplomatic measures to prevent, mitigate and address wartime rape have been put in place over the past twenty years than in the rest of human history combined. This includes a series of ten robust Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace and Security, half of which are specifically focused on combatting conflict-related sexual violence. Eight sanctions regimes now include sexual violence as part of their designation criteria, which puts past and potential perpetrators on notice. More women blue helmets and women protection advisers have been deployed to the field, and conflict-related sexual violence is routinely included in the mandates of peacekeeping missions as a core Protection of Civilians objective. There are more prosecutions of sexual violence at both the national and international level, including most recently in the Maya Achi cases in Guatemala and the case of Anwar R. from the Syrian intelligence service who was prosecuted for crimes including sexual violence in the Koblenz trial in Germany. Despite this, war鈥檚 oldest crime remains a constant threat with every new wave of warfare.

Achieving tangible change will require a paradigm shift in the way we confront peace and security challenges. No amount of protection or assistance is a substitute for peace, inclusive democracy, and the Rule of Law. Addressing sexual violence is an integral part of broader political and democratic transitions. In that context, policies of zero tolerance for war crimes against women cannot carry zero consequences. All tools must work in tandem to compel parties to comply with international law and to safeguard women at risk, including legislative reform; training of justice and security sector personnel; monitoring and accountability. This comprehensive approach is reflected in the 11 Joint 颁辞尘尘耻苍颈辩耻茅蝉 and Frameworks of Cooperation that my Office has signed with conflict-affected countries to anchor national ownership.
A shift in paradigm and perspective is also essential to ensure that local realities guide the global search for solutions. The survivor-centered approach, which I have made a priority of my mandate from day one, aims to amplify first-hand, front-line perspectives and has now been anchored in Security Council resolution 2467 of 2019. This approach views survivors not as passive beneficiaries, but as the co-creators of solutions. Critically, it does not only apply to relief and recovery, but also to upstream prevention efforts. Local women are often the first to raise the red flag about impending security threats, and yet they are still the last to be heard and heeded by security authorities at the local, national, and global levels.
Despite these challenges, my mandate continues to work toward sustainable solutions, and to turn commitments on paper into compliance in practice. On 19 June, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, my Office launched model legislative provisions on the investigation and prosecution of conflict-related sexual violence. This tool is based on best practices at both national and international level and is intended to be used by practitioners and legislators to ensure survivor and victim sensitive justice for conflict-related sexual violence. My Team of Experts on the Rule of Law on Sexual Violence in Conflict continues to deploy to conflict zones, including during the pandemic, namely to the Central African Republic, Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as part of efforts to strengthen national capacity to ensure that governments can address impunity for these crimes. The 蘑菇视频 Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict Network, which I chair, has grown to 21 entities across the full range of peace and security; human rights and justice; humanitarian; and development actors in the United Nations system for coordination and catalytic projects on the ground.

We continue to address emerging issues important to the welfare of survivors. My Office recently compiled Special Report of the Secretary-General on the rights and needs of survivors who become pregnant as a result of sexual violence in conflict, and children born of wartime rape with concrete recommendations to ensure that national policies uphold the rights of survivors and children born of such violence, including national policies and laws that ensure their rights and prevent all forms of discrimination against them; to ensure that there is funding for multisectoral assistance including legal assistance, medical and psychosocial services, and sexual and reproductive care including access to emergency contraception and safe termination of unwanted pregnancy, and socioeconomic reintegration for survivors and all of their dependents. I urge you to read the report on this important, yet historically invisible, subject.

My mandate also continues to support survivor-sensitive demands for reparations, including by assisting countries to establish reparations laws, but we are still struggling with implementation gaps especially in terms of financing and ensuring adequate budgetary allocations for the implementation of these laws. I can say without hesitation that reparations are what survivors of sexual violence demand most from justice processes but receive least and we must as an international community do better.

My Office is not merely reactive to events but aims to prevent conflict-related sexual violence from occurring in the first instance. To this end, we are currently developing a robust prevention strategy to address the root causes of conflict-related sexual violence and to 鈥榮ave succeeding generations鈥� from this scourge. In addition, the annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, compiled by my Office, and due to be debated by the Security Council next month, is focused on structural prevention and resilience-building, against the backdrop of increasing militarization, reprisals against women鈥檚 human rights defenders and activists, and shrinking civic space.

I would be remiss not to discuss for a moment this year鈥檚 priority theme for the Commission on the Status of Women, namely empowering women and girls and achieving equality in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction. Unless we take urgent measures now, as countries face pressures from climate change, we will see conflict over resources both geopolitically and domestically, risks to the stability of already fragile governments and economies and increasing forced migration and displacement. All of these are risk factors for conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls. However, we are not powerless, and women and girls, including survivors of conflict-related sexual violence have often become activists and agents of change. My Office has signed a first Cooperation agreement with the private sector notably the Global Tree Fund to help sexual violence survivors who require socioeconomic reintegration support and empowerment to do so in a sustainable way and we intend to expand these activities with other interested organizations and private sector partners.

Let me conclude by noting that the New York Bar Association has a key role to play in the fight against conflict-related sexual violence and gender equality more broadly, through the reports of your various committees, through the pro bono work that you do, and the experience you can share with other bar associations both within the United States and abroad. If the unprecedented events of our time have taught us anything, it is that we need international cooperation and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms to make progress on global challenges. Gender equality is the number one predictor of peace 鈥� more so than a nation鈥檚 level of development, democracy, or religious and ethnic identity. I hope on this International Women鈥檚 Day we can recommit ourselves to the cause of women and girls globally and to ending the scourge of sexual violence, which serves to oppress and silence them, in times of war and peace.

Thank you.