Conflict-related sexual violence
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 24 January 2023 (3rd sitting) (see Doc. 15677, report of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination,
rapporteur: Ms Petra Bayr). Text adopted
by the Assembly on 24 January 2023 (3rd sitting).
1. As well as devastating whole territories
and destroying infrastructure, war inflicts lasting damage on the people
over whose territory and surrounding whom it is waged, whatever
their role, leaving a trail of individual, collective and family
trauma over decades and across generations. Since February 2014,
the Russian Federation has waged a war of aggression against Ukraine,
which it relaunched on 24 February 2022 with a massive invasion
of Ukraine. In this regard, Europe’s leaders are again called upon
to address, on a national and multilateral scale, not only the conflict
itself, but also the far-reaching negative consequences for society of
the aggression of one country against another.
2. The aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine has
led to mass conflict-related sexual violence committed by the Russian
Federation’s armed forces and by affiliated armed groups against
the civilian population of Ukraine and Ukrainian prisoners of war:
in the eleven months of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, according
to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, 155 cases of conflict-related
sexual violence have been recorded in the regions of Kyiv, Kherson,
Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Mykolaiv.
The number of cases officially stated does not reflect the scale
of the crimes by the Russian Federation, which are much greater.
3. So-called “conflict-related sexual violence”, in fact unrelated
to any real conception of sexuality, is one of the worst atrocities
of war, systematically used as a tactic to humiliate, violate and
ruin the minds and bodies of victims, and in most cases intended
to leave them alive to tell their story, with the aim of spreading
fear and breaking the spirit of the oppressed. Conflict-related
sexual violence is a war crime in international law, can be a constitutive
element of genocide and is certainly used as a means of ethnic cleansing,
either to damage beyond repair the reproductive cycle of an “enemy”
or to repopulate regions with the “true blood” of the would-be conqueror.
Although the majority of victims are women and girls, they are not
the only targets and conflict-related sexual violence is less gender
specific in the case of young children.
4. Today, in particular thanks to the work of the United Nations
and its successive Security Council resolutions, conflict-related
sexual violence is no longer considered to be an inevitable and
indissociable by-product of war, but is identified as a preventable
phenomenon, which can be combated through concerted international
action, protective national policies, strictly enforced punishment
for perpetrators, empowerment of vulnerable persons and survivor-centred
reparation and rehabilitation programmes.
5. The Parliamentary Assembly condemns conflict-related sexual
violence in the strongest possible terms and reaffirms that its
perpetrators must be brought to justice, whether they are on the
battlefield or in positions of leadership. Determined action is
needed to eliminate the phenomenon and deal with its consequences. Referring
to its
Resolution 2120
(2016) “Women in the armed forces: promoting equality,
putting an end to gender-based violence” and
Resolution 2450 (2022) “Justice
and security for women in peace reconciliation”, the Assembly calls
on member States to foster, in times of peace, non-violent, resilient
societies based on equality and equal access to rights for all,
as prerequisites for facing crises, defusing tensions which risk escalating
into open conflict and minimising its consequences. It urges States
not yet having done so to ratify the Council of Europe Convention
on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence
(CETS No. 210, “Istanbul Convention”) which, under its Article 2,
paragraph 3, applies in times of peace and in situations of armed
conflict, and which also contains specific provisions on migrant
and asylum-seeking women who are victims of violence.
6. Preventing conflict-related sexual violence begins long before
the outbreak of armed conflict. Therefore, the Assembly calls on
member States and national parliaments to work on prevention in
peacetime and in situations of conflict alike, in particular by:
6.1 encouraging inclusive recruitment
to the armed forces and the police in order to attain a better gender
balance and thereby more equality from a gender perspective in promotion,
action and policies;
6.2 introducing or reinforcing training in police forces and
the army on assistance to victims of gender-based violence, including
the provision of safe spaces for survivors to recover and recount
their experiences, as well as advice on access to legal assistance
and to medical and psychological care. There must be co-ordination
between the different services, including with civil society organisations, and
these services must be mindful of preventing the re-traumatisation
of victims;
6.3 implementing, in places where conflict still has tangible
effects on communities, notably on the territory of the former Yugoslavia,
transitional justice measures in order to bring about real political transformation,
and countering narratives that glorify war criminals, including
exploring the relationship between these narratives and war propaganda
that is prohibited and criminally sanctioned, and countering and
prosecuting them, also online, for instance;
6.4 honouring survivors of conflict-related sexual violence
such as Nadia Murad, winner of the Václav Havel Prize and the Nobel
Peace Prize, who, as champions and ambassadors for peace and reparation, can
attract political and financial support while raising public awareness
of particularly affected regions and people and the need to help
them and give them a voice;
6.5 recognising the importance of culture as an agent of change:
theatre, cinema, sport and other cultural activities can do much
to change mentalities and promote peaceful living together.
7. The recognition of conflict-related sexual violence as a crime
against humanity and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court has allowed prosecution of its perpetrators both
on the ground and in command, in combination with other crimes.
On the other hand, the national level is the most appropriate for
holding individual perpetrators to account. Universal jurisdiction
is also an option. The Assembly congratulates Estonia, Germany,
Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic,
Spain, Sweden and Switzerland for having initiated universal jurisdiction
investigations of war crimes in the context of the Russian war of
aggression against Ukraine, or for having declared their intention
to do so, and also French prosecutors for having opened a war crimes
investigation under national jurisdiction in the same context, for cases
in which French citizens or residents have been possible victims
or suspected perpetrators. With respect to the prosecution of conflict-related
sexual violence, the Assembly calls on member States to:
7.1 sign and ratify the Rome Statute,
which is the legal basis for the work of the International Criminal Court,
if they have not already done so;
7.2 use universal jurisdiction as a means of prosecuting perpetrators
wherever they have committed crimes of conflict-related sexual violence;
7.3 use the provisions on international crime in their respective
national criminal codes that explicitly and implicitly cover behaviour
that constitutes conflict-related sexual violence, whenever perpetrators
or victims are present on their territory, or acts that have a nexus
to the crime are committed on their territory;
7.4 use the 2021 United Nations Model Legislative Provisions
and Guidance on Investigation and Prosecution of Conflict-Related
Sexual Violence of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General
on Sexual Violence in Conflict to ensure that efficient investigations
are carried out for use in courts and, to the same end, encourage
and support civil society organisations to follow the 2022 guidelines
of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
and Eurojust entitled Documenting international
crimes and human rights violations for accountability purposes:
guidelines for civil society organisations;
7.5 work with international courts to ensure the efficient
transfer of judgments to national prosecuting authorities, which
includes sharing access to databases of collected evidence;
7.6 provide concrete expert and technical support, with the
Assembly and the Council of Europe, for the setting-up of a special
(ad hoc) international tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression
against Ukraine, as conflict-related sexual violence is a result
of this crime of aggression.
8. Documentation, reporting, evidence collection and research
are essential in uncovering crimes and prosecuting perpetrators
of conflict-related sexual violence. These crimes are notoriously
difficult to monitor due to under-reporting by survivors who do
not wish to or are not able to speak, because the harm done may be
invisible and difficult to prove, and because infrastructure and
services are often lacking in the conditions in which survivors
find themselves, including in war zones, regions of so-called “frozen
conflicts”, etc.
9. Praising the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
such as Ukraine 5 AM Coalition (a finalist for the 2022 Václav Havel
Prize), which is a coalition of human rights organisations collecting
data in Ukraine since the first bombardments by Russia, the Assembly
urges member States to:
9.1 ensure
that solid and safe procedures for reporting sexual violence are
in place in peacetime, following the provisions of the Istanbul
Convention, in order for these procedures to be operational when applied
to sexual violence in conflict-related situations;
9.2 make sure that survivors of sexual violence are offered
safe spaces to exchange their experiences, that witnesses are given
adequate protection, that the different services involved in evidence
collection use technological means admissible in courts to record
evidence and are co-ordinated in order to avoid repetition of testimonies,
thus avoiding re-traumatisation;
9.3 support, including financially, the development of electronic
tools for survivors to record evidence of gender-based violence
themselves, in particular during conflict, for instance “Back Up”,
an application developed and piloted by the NGO We Are NOT Weapons
of War;
9.4 ensure that the police are trained and enabled to receive
evidence at local level, without requiring a higher level of police
and jurisdictional intervention in the early stages of judicial
procedures.
10. Care for survivors must be immediate, holistic and centred
on the needs of the persons concerned. In this respect, the Assembly
urges national authorities and international organisations to work
together to:
10.1 support the International
Criminal Court’s Trust Fund for Victims through financial contributions;
10.2 transfer on request the frozen assets of perpetrators
convicted by the International Criminal Court to the Trust Fund
for Victims to fund reparations and programmes for survivors;
10.3 adopt, building on principles of transitional justice,
survivor-centred gender-specific practices and ensure reparations
are tailored to the age and situation of victims;
10.4 implement, with respect to all victims, whether they are
on national territory or have fled war in their country, the World
Health Organization’s guidelines Clinical
management of rape and intimate partner violence survivors: developing
protocols for use in humanitarian settings to ensure
that medical providers apply survivor-centred approaches and follow
the necessary health protocols aimed at protecting women from unwanted
pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
11. Survivor-centred measures must be tailored to the individual
needs of victims of conflict-related sexual violence wherever they
find themselves and include unimpeded access to information and
abortion. States must ensure women’s access to sexual and reproductive
health and rights by:
11.1 prioritising
sexual and reproductive health services across the humanitarian
and refugee response;
11.2 taking effective action to address and remove restrictions
on and barriers to access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive
healthcare, including time-sensitive and essential care;
11.3 strengthening the capacity and readiness of the health
system, including health workers, to provide human rights-based,
comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services as well as
services for the prevention and management of sexual and gender-based
violence;
11.4 ensuring that local experts and civil society organisations
participate in the design of measures to respond to issues relating
to sexual and reproductive health and rights;
11.5 ensuring sustainable, long-term funding and flexible support
to national health systems programming, service provision and advocacy
for sexual and reproductive health and rights, to help break down
systemic and structural barriers.
12. International organisations, non-governmental organisations
and their members working in peacekeeping operations are not exempt
from using their positions of authority over vulnerable people,
in particular exiles and displaced persons, to commit atrocious
crimes of sexual violence, including trafficking and sexual slavery.
The Assembly calls on the United Nations to pursue its efforts to
implement a zero-tolerance policy to eliminate sexual abuse and
exploitation committed in the context of its operations, including
by locally recruited staff, and ensure that the NGOs working in
programmes are covered by these policies.
13. Non-governmental organisations and civil society stakeholders
are key in accompanying survivors of conflict-related sexual violence
and act as early warning agents on the ground when tensions arise
and situations deteriorate. Therefore, the Assembly calls upon national
parliaments to ensure that civil society, and especially female
peace advocates, women’s rights NGOs, women-led organisations and
organisations dealing with gender-based violence and sexual and
reproductive health and rights, are supported in their work and
are given sustainable, flexible, long-term institutional financial
support and infrastructure to function efficiently.
14. Recognising the important contribution and significant potential
of the United Nations in preventing conflict-related sexual violence,
the Assembly welcomes initiatives to ensure impartial and objective
decision making on issues involving conflict-related sexual violence
and other international crimes, including the political statement
on the suspension of the veto in case of mass atrocities presented
by France and Mexico and signed by 104 United Nations member States,
and other initiatives restricting the possibility to veto, as well
as calls for binding commitments with a similar content.
15. Finally, the Assembly calls on member States to introduce
laws that guarantee survivors of conflict-related sexual violence
individual and collective lifelong access to measures of inclusion,
reparation and rehabilitation without undue bureaucratic or psychological
obstacles, and to devote the necessary financial and human resources
to these programmes in the knowledge that pecuniary compensation
for the consequences of the damage done is almost impossible.
