Justice, Rule of Law and Security Sector Reform

Violence against women and girls in conflicts, and in particular sexual and gender based violence, continues to devastate the lives of many and too often perpetrators enjoy impunity, as events in eastern-DRC remind us.

The EU asks the Security Council to redouble its efforts in the fight against impunity; targeted and graduated measures should be imposed against all parties to conflict responsible for grave violations of women's rights. Perpetrators of sexual violence, including commanders who commission or condone the use of sexual violence, should be held accountable.

First, it includes steps to increase gender related expertise, as well as general awareness and support for the inclusion of gender perspective in crisis management at all levels through enhanced training.

El Salvador, as a troop-contributing country, is making a significant contribution, relatively speaking, to peacekeeping operations in terms of members of its armed forces and the national civil police force. At the same time, we are also endeavouring to promote the gender perspective and the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) within those national institutions.

Moreover, our multidimensional operations have greatly benefited from the recruitment of gender advisers in each of our missions. Those advisers have provided valuable technical expertise in the Sudan, on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; in Chad, on prison reform; in Burundi, on election support; and in Afghanistan, on constitutional reform.

With regard to police personnel, beyond the presence of a woman — who is seated behind me — at the head of our entire police force around the world, we have set up a plan to enable us to achieve a 20 per cent proportion of our worldwide police personnel being female by 2014. As for our 15 peacekeeping missions, three are now led by women, while none were a few years ago.

Secondly, our focus in future must be on building the capacities of women to build and sustain peace in their own countries. We must invest more in facilitating women's participation in political processes and in newly restructured security sector institutions. We must also work closely with local women to identify and implement protection strategies.

The conference will build on the concrete know-how from a number of countries that experience or have experienced conflict, including Afghanistan, Liberia and Uganda. One concrete example of how we have chosen to improve the conditions of women in a conflict zone is our ongoing work in support of women's networks and organisations in Afghanistan.

Even on Croatian territory, in the heart of Europe, rape was used as a method of intimidation and terror, during the aggression to which Croatia was exposed at the beginning of 1990s. We are fully aware of the role both the Security Council and international community can play in addressing sexual violence against women and girls, especially when used by political or military leaders as a means of achieving political of military objectives.

Armed conflicts continue to have a devastating impact on women and girls, and are often accompanied by gender based violence including an increasing scale and brutality of sexual violence, often used as a means of war. Impunity for such acts of violence against women is still prevalent, and the prosecution rate very low.