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STORY: UN / SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT
TRT: 03:00
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / BOSNIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 19 JUNE 2018, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
19 JUNE 2018, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“The response must be very holistic when it comes to the children born of rape. It must address both the mother and the child; there must be an acknowledgement of past violations; there must be a clarification of the context in which those violations took place; it must be made very clear that these women and their children are victims and there must also be targeted reparations for these mothers and their children.”
4. Med shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“The line between sexual exploitation and abuse, SEA, and sexual violence, the line is very fine, and I continue to work very closely with the Victim’s Rights Advocate in supporting her work and ensuring that the mother, that the survivor of the SEA or the sexual violence obtains necessary redress, but also ensuring that the child born of rape is also taken care of in terms of ensuring that all the rights of the child are actually addressed. I think it is a human rights issue.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Alen Muhic, Representative, Forgotten Children of War:
“My life story really began when I was adopted. The family that took me in treated me as their own. I grew up with two sisters who are my real siste5rs. I never felt I was adopted. And it was all fine until I was about eight years old when I found out I am adopted. That was a first stigma to get me. A child in the neighbourhood called me really bad names. He effectively told me that my mother was not my mother, my father was not my father and I was adopted and I was the result of a rape during the war. I punched him before I ran home to ask my parents what was the real story. This is when my father hugged me and then he told me the whole story.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. Wide shot, end of presser
Marking the International day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, today (19 June) said “the response must be very holistic when it comes to the children born of rape,” and “must address both the mother and the child.”
Patten said, “there must be an acknowledgement of past violations; there must be a clarification of the context in which those violations took place; it must be made very clear that these women and their children are victims and there must also be targeted reparations for these mothers and their children.”
The Special Representative highlighted the difference between sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) and sexual violence in conflict, saying that “the line is very fine.”
She said she works “very closely” with the SEA’s Victim’s Rights Advocate, Jane Connors, “in supporting her work and ensuring that the mother, that the survivor of the SEA or the sexual violence obtains necessary redress, but also ensuring that the child born of rape is also taken care of in terms of ensuring that all the rights of the child are actually addressed.”
Patten said this was “a human rights issue.”
Also speaking to reporters, Alen Muhic, a representative of the NGO Forgotten Children of War, and himself a child born out of rape during conflict, narrated his life story.
He said “my life story really began when I was adopted. The family that took me in treated me as their own. I grew up with two sisters who are my real siste5rs. I never felt I was adopted. And it was all fine until I was about eight years old when I found out I am adopted. That was a first stigma to get me. A child in the neighbourhood called me really bad names. He effectively told me that my mother was not my mother, my father was not my father and I was adopted and I was the result of a rape during the war. I punched him before I ran home to ask my parents what was the real story. This is when my father hugged me and then he told me the whole story.”
The term “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. The term also encompasses trafficking in persons when committed in situations of conflict for the purpose of sexual violence or exploitation.
On 19 June 2015, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 19 June of each year the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, in order to raise awareness of the need to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence, to honour the victims and survivors of sexual violence around the world and to pay tribute to all those who have courageously devoted their lives to and lost their lives in standing up for the eradication of these crimes.
