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STORY: UN / WOMEN PEACE AND SECURITY
TRT: 0
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 14JULY 2023, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
06 JULY 2023, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“Rising militarization and arms proliferation are bringing conflicts across the globe to boiling point, creating the conditions for unimaginable and unrelenting cruelty. Gang rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence are being used as a tactic of war, torture, and terrorism, to subjugate and displace populations.”
4. Pan right, Security Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“UN humanitarian service providers reported more than 38,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence in 2022, in North Kivu alone, including alarming levels of sexual exploitation of children at more than 1,000 sites in and around displacement camps. Against this backdrop, I felt compelled to visit the DRC in June to assess the situation first-hand. I was horrified by the testimonies I heard from women and girls, many of whom had been very recently raped and/or gang raped and were still receiving treatment.”
6. Wide shot, Security Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“When I visited reception centres in Poland and Moldova, I witnessed first-hand the extraordinary toll on women, children and the elderly, including their vulnerability to unscrupulous individuals and criminal networks for whom the rapid and unprecedented mass displacement of people is not a tragedy but an opportunity for trafficking and sexual exploitation. This March, when I returned to Ukraine, I again met with survivors and heard their heart-wrenching accounts of brutal sexual violence reportedly perpetrated by Russian soldiers.”
8. Wide shot, Security Council
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“The annual report clearly demonstrates the emboldening effects of impunity. The reality is that until we effectively raise the cost and consequences for committing, commanding or condoning sexual violence, we will never stem the tide of such violations.”
10. Med shot, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya addressing the Council
11. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“If there were any doubts left about whether the report is biased or not, well, the section on Ukraine definitively dispels these. The allegations contained therein targeting Russian servicemen are groundless and absurd. They're nothing but a dissemination of fakes. Fakes made up in Kyiv. Representatives of the Kyiv regime, acting in keeping with the maxims of their Third Reich idols, and one of those idols stated that the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe it. However, the UN Secretariat should not really be participating in such disinformation campaigns.”
12. Wide shot, Council
13. Wide shot, United Kingdom’s Foreign Minister Tariq Ahmad walks up to podium
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Tariq Ahmad, Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, United Kingdom:
“When we cast an eye around the world, whether we're looking at the DRC, where I visited in November, Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, and indeed many other places of the world, we continue to see the use of conflict related sexual violence as a real weaponization of war. It's wrought upon many survivors of conflict, survivors who hope that they've survived the worst of their ordeals. And then are violated in their most abhorrent way.”
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence and Conflict Pramila Patten, today (14 Jul) told the Security Council that “gang rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence are being used as a tactic of war, torture, and terrorism, to subjugate and displace populations.”
Briefing Council members, Patten said “rising militarization and arms proliferation are bringing conflicts across the globe to a boiling point, creating the conditions for unimaginable and unrelenting cruelty.”
Noting that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the country presenting the highest number of cases with 701 verified violations of conflict-related sexual violence, she said “UN humanitarian service providers reported more than 38,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence in 2022, in North Kivu alone, including alarming levels of sexual exploitation of children at more than 1,000 sites in and around displacement camps.”
The Special Representative said that during her visit the DRC in June, she was “horrified by the testimonies I heard from women and girls, many of whom had been very recently raped and/or gang raped and were still receiving treatment.”
In Poland and Moldova, she said, “I witnessed first-hand the extraordinary toll on women, children and the elderly, including their vulnerability to unscrupulous individuals and criminal networks for whom the rapid and unprecedented mass displacement of people is not a tragedy but an opportunity for trafficking and sexual exploitation.”
This March, Patten added, she again visited Ukraine, and “met with survivors and heard their heart-wrenching accounts of brutal sexual violence reportedly perpetrated by Russian soldiers.”
She said the Secretary-General’s annual report “clearly demonstrates the emboldening effects of impunity” and added that “until we effectively raise the cost and consequences for committing, commanding or condoning sexual violence, we will never stem the tide of such violations.”
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, said, “if there were any doubts left about whether the report is biased or not, well, the section on Ukraine definitively dispels these. The allegations contained therein targeting Russian servicemen are groundless and absurd. They're nothing but a dissemination of fakes. Fakes made up in Kyiv. Representatives of the Kyiv regime, acting in keeping with the maxims of their Third Reich idols, and one of those idols stated that the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe it. However, the UN Secretariat should not really be participating in such disinformation campaigns.”
Outside the Council, the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for Preventing Sexual Violence, Tariq Ahmad, said, “when we cast an eye around the world, whether we're looking at the DRC, where I visited in November, Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, and indeed many other places of the world, we continue to see the use of conflict related sexual violence as a real weaponization of war. It's wrought upon many survivors of conflict, survivors who hope that they've survived the worst of their ordeals. And then are violated in their most abhorrent way.”
Today’s open debate, entitled “Promoting Implementation of Security Council Resolutions on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence,” focused on closing the implementation gap of the legal and normative framework on CRSV.
