HR

Secondly, as mentioned at the beginning, attention must be paid to the recovery and reintegration of victims. Victims require a minimum support that involves medical and psychosocial care, including sexual and reproductive health care. Although at the beginning I mentioned that the main victims of sexual violence are women, girls, boys and adolescents, men too are victims. Civil society as a whole is a group vulnerable to the aberrant practice. Rape, enforced sterilization, the transmission of AIDS, genital violence and castration are all forms of sexual violence that are used as weapons of war and terrorism. The humiliation and social rejection suffered by victims is a responsibility that Governments, civil society organizations and community and religious leaders must bear in mind and attend to with all the appropriate means in order to be able to effectively mend the social fabric.

Similarly, girls and boys born of war and produced by sexual violence — by women being raped — are invisible victims, who from the time they are born are denied another fundamental human right: the right to a name. As mentioned today, in many cases girls and boys born of rape are considered to be children of the enemy and face a life of rejection and exclusion.They continue to be denied fundamental rights and to be deprived of access to basic services such as medical care and education. Nonetheless, those girls and boys are also members of society, and steps must be taken for their education, integration, inclusion and social acceptance so as to prevent a vicious circle that perpetuates violence.