|
RESOLUTION 1325
• Full text
• History & Analysis
• Who's Responsible for Implementation?
• 1325
Anniversary
TRANSLATING
1325
UNITED
NATIONS
• Women
and the UN
• Security Council (SC)
• Gender & Peacekeeping
• 1325 Monitor: Women &
Gender in the work of the Security Council
• Gender Focal Points
• PeaceBuilding Commission
WOMEN, WAR &
PEACE WEB PORTAL
• UNIFEM
• PeaceWomen
JOIN WILPF
|
Statement
by Ambassador Anne Patterson, Deputy U.S. Representative to the United
Nations, on Strengthening the UN’s Response to Gender-Based
Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations
Security Council Open Debate on women, peace and security, 28 October
2004
Mr. President, my delegation would like to thank Under Secretary General
Guehenno for his candid introduction of the Secretary General’s
report [ S/2004/814 ] as well as the reports of the High Commissioner
for Humanitarian Affairs and Executive Director Obeid. I wish
to congratulate you on your selection of this topic for your Presidency’s
thematic discussion. This is a very difficult issue. The United
States agrees that the UN must strengthen its response to gender-based
violence in both conflict and post-conflict situations. The
U.S. delegation would like to focus its comments today on one element
of the problem, namely trafficking in persons. This problem
is often worsened by the upheaval of post-conflict situations, as
Ms. Arbour said. Regrettably, it has also been associated with the
presence of peacekeeping operations.
Mr. President, as you are aware, trafficking in persons is an issue
that continues to grow, sometimes in those same places we are charged
as members of the Security Council to protect. Annually,
600,000-800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across borders.
These individuals are recruited, transported, or sold into all forms
of forced labor and servitude including prostitution, labor, farming
and child armies. The victims range from a 12 year old girl
in the Congo forced to have sex with more than a dozen foreigners
a day, to child soldiers in the African continent, to a smuggled Mexican
worker toiling in a Florida tomato field to pay off a hugely inflated
“debt,” that never declines. Of these victims, 80%
are female. 70% of these girls and women are trafficked into
the commercial sex industry.
Mr. President, the United States is deeply committed to ending the
scourge of trafficking in persons that poses a security threat by
lining the pockets of criminal groups, while grossly violating people’s
human rights and serving as a public health threat through the spread
of sexually transmitted diseases. This also hampers readiness.
This is an issue that is receiving increasing attention from the international
community and from the United States. Last September, President
Bush called on the international community to create clear standards
and certainty of punishment for the crime of trafficking. Since 2000,
the U.S. has given almost $300 million to support anti-trafficking
in persons programs in more than 120 countries. In the past
year, 24 nations enacted new laws to combat trafficking in persons
while 32 other countries are currently drafting or passing such laws.
As a result of these efforts, nearly 8,000 traffickers have been prosecuted
worldwide while 2,800 have been convicted.
Mr. President, while these gains are admirable I am sorry to say they
fall short of redressing the problem. We need a concerted effort
on the part of all member states to end this plague. Not surprisingly,
UN peacekeeping missions mirror attitudes and problems found in the
armed forces of the member states. As Security Council members,
we should continue to support the efforts of UN leadership to effect
change within UN missions. Trafficking in persons violations
within UN missions needs continued high-level attention. In
July 2004, the Under-Secretary-General Guehenno and the Secretary
General officially approved an anti-trafficking policy for peacekeepers.
This policy supplements a bulletin issued by the Secretary General
in October 2003, which also established guidelines of acceptable conduct
by UN peacekeepers. This bulletin prohibits acts of sexual exploitation
and sexual abuse by UN staff or UN forces conducting operations under
UN command, including the “exchange of money, employment, goods
or services for sex” and sexual activity with persons under
age 18.
However, a policy is only as good as its enforcement. We welcome
Mr. Guehenno’s statement that t he UN will enforce a policy
of zero-tolerance in sex trafficking at every UN mission. We
must also enforce the same zero-tolerance policy with prostitution,
as this fuels the demand for human trafficking victims by serving
as a cover under which traffickers operate. We also seek to
put in place trafficking in persons training for all UN peacekeepers,
which would be mandatory prior to their deployment.
Mr. President, the U.S. commends the work of the DPKO Best Practices
Unit to this end. In July of this year, the U.S. Department
of State provided $200,000 in funding support to the Best Practices
Unit for the production of anti-trafficking awareness materials. Best
Practices will produce over 60,000 posters, brochures and pocket cards,
translated into 10 peacekeeping languages, for distribution to all
missions, regional training centers, and to pre-deployment training
centers of the main troop-contributing countries. However, having
one staff member dedicated to addressing the issues of trafficking
in persons among all UN peacekeepers is not enough, especially when
that one position will expire in the next two months. And while
these efforts are useful in raising awareness they will be meaningless
unless Peacekeepers receive mandatory training which clearly outlines
the U.N.’s “zero tolerance” policy and they receive
proper punishment which fits the crime. Most importantly, we
need a dedicated U.N. leadership position to carry out these major
goals.
Mr. President, by definition, post-conflict societies are those which
suffer from weak rule of law. United Nations peacekeeping missions
need to be at the forefront of ensuring that gender based violence
is eliminated and redressed. We can do this by creating concrete
steps and actions to ensure compliance. Thank you.
|
|
NEWS
• 1325
PeaceWomen E-News
• Country News Index
• International News
• Peacekeeping News
RESOURCES
• Country
& Thematic
Civil Society, UN & Government
• 1325
Advocacy Tools
INITIATIVES
• In-country
• Regional and Global
• 1325 in Action
ORGANIZATIONS
• Country-specific
• International
LATEST
PEACEWOMEN UPDATES
PEACEWOMEN
NGO WEB RING
Women, Peace &
Security Community representing the diversity and depth of research, organizing
and advocacy on women, peace and security issues.
|
PeaceWomen