蘑菇视频

I am grateful for the opportunity to be on this panel and to share with you my insight on the heart-wrenching video that you will see shortly on the plight of women and girls who become pregnant as a result of conflict-related sexual violence, and of the children born of such violence.

I was in South Sudan last month where in Juba and Yambio, I met young mothers recently released from the grip of armed groups along with their children born of rape who were already suffering from mental health complications. These women shared with me the unimaginable cruelty they have suffered only to be shamed and shunned by their families and communities upon release. They related to me the range of physical, psychological, economic, cultural and legal risks and harms to which their children 聽are exposed with 聽no birth certificate, access to education or health. They called for urgent provision of medical and psychological support in addition to their access to free education. Having seen the condition of these children first-hand, I cannot emphasize enough the need for multisectoral support to them and their mothers, and I call on Member States, donors to allocate sustained funding for interventions in this area through the conflict-related sexual violence multi-partner trust fund. Once again, it was clear how the fate of these children is inextricably linked to their mothers and how they suffer as a result of their mothers鈥� own stigmatization, social exclusion and discrimination. Being born of sexual violence carries unique, immediate, life-threatening and enduring risks and harms which include: infanticide, abandonment at birth, statelessness, stigmatization 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 radicalization and poor health.

Since I took office as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Conflict in 2017, I have spared no efforts to advocate for the rights and plight of these children and their mothers. In 2019, for the first time, SCR 2467 recognized them as rights-holders under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and acknowledged the life threatening and enduring risks and harms these children often face including 鈥渆conomic and social marginalization, physical and psychological injury, statelessness, discrimination and lack of access to reparations鈥�. As mandated by resolution 2467, in January, the Secretary-General published a report, compiled by my Office, which provides a solid foundation for upholding the rights and responding to the needs of children born of rape and survivors. As the Secretary General puts it: 鈥渁ny failure to close this protection gap will deprive survivors and generations of children born of conflict-related rape of the dividends of peace, fueling conflict and generating further cycles of violence鈥�.

From Somalia to Sudan or Iraq, where a child cannot be registered without the father’s name and several other contexts where a mother cannot transmit her nationality to her child, it is clear that a global protection gap exists for children born of sexual violence in conflict and that national and international policymakers have largely overlooked the protection needs 鈥� and indeed, the existence 鈥� of these children. Denial of their rights is irreconcilable with the human rights鈥� claim to universality and makes the foundational principle of the Sustainable Development Goals, 鈥淟eave No one Behind鈥� an empty mantra. The plight of children born of wartime rape is both a human rights issue and a security issue. The cost of neglect is too high. Without targeted support, mothers and their children born of sexual violence are set on a trajectory of poverty, discrimination and violence. This is an emergency because lives are at stake. In the absence of laws, policies or institutional mechanisms, an entire generation of children will be considered outcasts and forced to live on the margins of society. No child should ever be invisible. It is time to bridge the global protection gap and remedy this human rights failure.

There is both a legal responsibility and a moral obligation to address the rights violations of these children and their mothers. Remedying this failure is critical to achieving dignity, meaningful and inclusive peace, reconciliation and justice for all.

I urge Member States to implement all the recommendations set out in the Secretary General鈥檚 report 聽and to heed the UK鈥檚 Call to Action and its Platform for Action launched last year in 聽November, which also emphasized the importance of strengthening legal and policy frameworks; in addition to 聽providing space to survivors and children born of sexual violence in debates affecting them.