Implementation

Women are often — intentionally or by a lack of security structures — placed at risk. It is striking that sexual violence has been absent so often from peace talks and peace agreements, including those that have followed conflicts where sexual violence was a major feature of the fighting. The Security Council and the United Nations can, in general, play an important role in changing that situation.

We should start to work towards the effectiveness of our fight against sexual violence by making full use of the existing tools — for instance, by ensuring the deployment in relevant peacekeeping operations of women's protection advisers, who will strengthen the prevention and the response to sexual violence. Many challenges have delayed the deployment of those advisers, even when specifically requested by the Council.

In recent years, Security Council resolutions have recognized sexual violence as a tactic of war and its potential to undermine peace and security. We need to recognize that much has been accomplished since 2010. Monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements have been established in a number of conflict or post-conflict situations to collect more consistent information on conflict related sexual violence.

Anther promising tool at the disposal of Member States that could be further engaged is the Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict. The lack of capacity at the national level to investigate and prosecute sexual violence remains the main obstacle to ensuring accountability, and leads to the prevalence of impunity.

Security Council resolutions over the years have established that systematic sexual violence, used as an instrument of war, is a grave threat to international peace and security. By now, we have developed a strong normative and institutional framework to fight that scourge. The erroneous thesis that sexual violence in armed conflict is a cultural phenomenon has been rejected.

We also highlight the important role that non-governmental organizations and civil society groups can play in drawing attention to some of the worst abuses, and their related role as an important part of the accountability landscape — sometimes, as the representative of Germany has pointed out, by putting themselves at considerable special risk.

We also encourage the Council to include this topic in its annual consultations with the African Union's Peace and Security Council. The perspectives and expertise of regional organizations are valuable in developing comprehensive strategies for addressing accountability for sexual violence in conflict.

Next, accountability for sexual violence does not lend itself to a one-size-fits-all approach. The Council must be agile, inclusive and open to considering alternative courses of action. Presidential and public statements from the Council give voice to the international community's abhorrence for sexual violence and send a very strong signal that it will not be tolerated.

As my delegation said in the April debate on sexual violence in conflict during the Rwandan presidency (see S/PV.6948), it is vitally important that the Council send a clear message on the issue of sexual violence to the entire international community and that it does so through, inter alia, the strong statements made in debates like this.

Through policies such as its human rights and gender strategies, the Netherlands pays particular attention to issues such as gender equality, women's political role and leadership, economic empowerment and ending trafficking of and violence against women in post-conflict countries and unstable areas.