United Nations Security Council Resolution 1276

Transcription

Anne: Well I’m very honored today to welcome to our little studio, Zainab Hawa Bangura, who is the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations on Violence against Women in Conflict Areas: a huge job, and a huge question. I am very delighted that she is coming to speak with us about this. Zainab: Thank you very much. I’m extremely honored to be able to talk to you, to come and visit Stanford, It’s beautiful, and thank you very much for the work you have been doing. You are actually an inspiration for a lot of women around the world. I, my background: I come from a family where I’m the first generation to be educated. Both my parents, father and mother, were illiterate. And obviously my mother made the determination to get me to school, to be educated, at the anger of my father who as a result of this threw us out at the age of 12 because he thought that the education of a girl is not important. So I think at that very age I understood and realized what it means to discriminate against a woman. And I went to school through the support of my mother under very difficult circumstances. She instilled the principle that education is the best thing for your life. And so that discrimination I grew up with, and I think that’s what inspired me to be able to work for women’s rights. And in this job, I think ir is because we had, as you are aware, we went through almost 12 years of civil conflict in Sierra Leone, one of the most brutal. I worked for an NGO, called Campaign for Good Governance, which I founded and ran for five, six years, during the course of the conflict. It was during my period as the head of that organization that I came in contact with women who have been sexually abused in the course of the conflict; 60 000 women were raped during the conflict in Sierra Leone. I documented a lot of the atrocities, their stories, and that made me become very conscious and I spent two years in Liberia working for the UN. So obviously I wasn’t very surprised when I was nominated to take this job, because definitely my background, my experience was one of the things that actually got me to be nominated for this job. My job: I am the key focal person in the United Nations that provides coherent and strategic leadership. My job was created as a result of a Security Council resolution, 1888 in 2009, which requested the Secretary General to appoint somebody who will provide coherent and strategic leadership with regard to fighting this cause against sexual violence in conflict. So I lead and coordinate the UN effort and am the international voice on that issue, and I provide high-level political advocacy. My mandate is global, from Colombia to Cambodia, to Bosnia, to Syria, to Central Republic of Congo, to Somalia. It’s across the country, the world, but I focus on 12 countries because it’s a huge problem, and I think to be able to very strategic, to be able to achieve results you have to start in a way in which you know you can manage. The 12 countries are Colombia, Bosnia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, South Sudan/Darfur, Sudan, Côte D’Ivoire, Liberia. Then I have Mali, Somalia, Libya, and Syria. These are the 12 countries. I report to the Security Council through the Secretary General, so we prepare an annual report, which actually comes out every March. Last year we reported on 22 countries, which include Afghanistan, Nepal and a whole lot of range of other countries. This year it is possible that we might reduce it to 20 countries, but we have three categories of countries; we have conflict countries, we have post-conflict countries, we have countries of interest; these are countries where we feel sexual violence is taking place in very special and unique circumstances, for example in Egypt, during the demonstrations in Egypt, the political transition. In Kenya in the process of the democratic election that took place a couple of years ago. And the third is, well actually two other countries, one is Guinea, where they had massive rape at the stadium during the military government. And then in Angola, when DRC refugee women were deported back from Angola to the DRC, so we have intervening this small number of countries and work with the government to make sure that they take the necessary action that is required. Anne: And how do you begin? I mean we have to begin somewhere. It’s a massive task, but it’s manageable in some senses I gather from our earlier conversation. Could you give us an example of how you begin in a country to try to make a difference? Zainab: What we have been able to do at the international level, we have developed the global legal framework, which started with resolution 1325 that actually established that conflicts affect women disproportionately than any other population. And that spells us clearly what needs to be done, including a plan of action in a country, the political participation of women, have women in the peace process, on the table, empower women. Eight years later, the Security Council adopted a resolution, 1820, which interestingly was a resolution, which was chaired by Condolezza Rice when she was Secretary of State. That resolution recognizes sexual violence as an international peace and security issue, which requires a peace keeping and justice and a service response. And at the same time, it actually encourages and mandated the various Security Council sanction committees that in imposing sanctions on a country they have to look at where sexual violence have been committed. A year later, they increased the infrastructure, which created my office, and interestingly the person who chaired that meeting that created my office was Hilary Clinton. A year later. So that resolution instructed the Secretary General to create this office, headed by myself, with a team of experts who are specialists that support national governments, and then with women protection advisors, that have special skills and have worked in the countries where the conflicts are taking place. So the important issues that we have the global legal framework as the United Nations, but United Nations by itself cannot solve this problem. So we have recognized as a war crime, we have had a resolution about that, but how do you implement this resolution in countries? So what we have tried to do, we have worked, headed by the U.K., to create the momentum, the political momentum, and make sure that all countries are counted on. So we started with a declaration by the G8, which recognizes and had a declaration committed to put resources and efforts into fighting sexual violence, because they are the 8 biggest economies, some of the biggest economies in the world. After that, last year, we had a declaration of commitment, with as I speak to you, 137 countries have signed out of the 194 countries of the United Nations, which is to make a commitment to fight sexual violence until sickness or death. So what I do with these 12 countries that I have listed, I have visited countries which started with my predecessor, and one of the things we do is to get a political commitment from the government, so we sign an agreement, we call a general communiqué. In that agreement we spell out what is required and what the government needs to do. In some countries rape is not a crime. Zainab: So the first thing is that after we sign and realize it’s not a crime, then that means we have to get the right legislation. Once we are able to do that we have to have a policy and strategy how to fight it. Then you have to engage different stakeholders. So once we sign this communiqué agreement to do what is necessary, whether it is changing the law, whether it’s making sure the police are trained or prosecute; as soon as I get this agreement, this is followed by the visit of my team of experts, who are specialists in the rule of law and sexual violence. They are lawyers, prosecutors, judicial people, very skilled people on the rule of law and justice. And they now go and sit down and work with the governments. Anne: Now do you, are you welcomed by these governments? Do they, are they happy to meet with you? Zainab: No. The thing about sexual violence is that it has a culture of denial and silence. People refuse to accept that it’s actually happening. They don’t. And so, at the end of it, you have to do a lot of work. And one of the instances, because I also report to the Security Council, people get very angry. You know, once the Security Council seeks a decision, you can’t say no. So I give an instance, when I was on a visit to Somalia, because they had taken to court and prosecuted a woman who claimed that the police had raped her, the government got extremely angry, they arrested her, arrested her husband, arrested the human rights officer who broke the story, arrested the journalist who wrote the story, arrested a social worker. Five people were arrested, so I really had to ask for help with Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, with William Hague and his prime minister and the president of the European Union because the president was making a tour, the president of Somalia was making a tour. So I connected with all the embassies in New York and they connected with their headquarters to raise this issue with him together so woman release and all the other people. He was extremely angry at me. Eventually he was forced to release this woman. So when I asked to visit, they refuse. But we had pressure from the international community, especially the U.K. that made sure I did a visit. I wasn’t taken to see any of them, because they were not in the country. And I think in a way it was deliberate, but eventually we worked, we met the president, we signed an agreement with him, and today I can tell you he is a very good friend of mine. He doesn’t like it, but he has to do it. Anne: This was one case, one woman that you followed up, but would open a panoply of other cases, no doubt. In that case, for example, can you measure change? Maybe not yet? Zainab: The change specifically is that the government recognizes and accepted that sexual violence has taken place. Because they were saying “No, it’s wrong” even though we had a list, 1,700 women had been raped the previous year in the 503 refugee camps in Mogadishu. But the government said that “it’s wrong, no refugee, no rape has taken place, no rape is taking place.” So that’s one example, because we changed the narrative, the government had to accept ownership that the rape is taking place and it had to require help from us. And we signed an agreement with them, and now we are in the process of implementing the agreement to make sure that we actually implement the actions that they have to, we have to change the law in Somalia, there is no law that is actually against sexual violence, prosecutes sexual violence. The other case that we had was the DRC, because as you know the DRC was called the “city of rape.” Anne: Absolutely Zainab: And so it was very difficult when I took the job because my predecessor had gone there three times, and my under secretary general, who is very particular about this issue, had gone there and couldn’t get a response from the president. And so today I can say to you: one, the president addressed the senate and announced to the country that he is going to commit himself to fight on sexual violence, he is going to appoint a personal representative in his office, that is going to be responsible for working on the issue of sexual violence as well as child soldiers, he is going to set up a special court within the justice system to deal with war crimes, in particular sexual violence, he has given amnesty to some of the people who fought in the war, but he has excluded sexual violence and war crimes. He has taken very concrete steps that nobody thought two years ago president Kabila could do. I addressed the senate as part of my advocacy, the senate has set up a special committee to work on sexual violence. I addressed all the police officers in the entire country. They have a unit of police officers, and appointed a woman for the first time--the highest ranking woman in the police--is dealing with this issue of sexual violence. The military has set up a committee, because I met the minister of defense. So I engage different stakeholders and now all of them are on board and I say to them “You have to lead. This is not my problem. This is not my country, and these are your women. This is your country. And I think it’s important for you to recognize that.” So everybody is astonished at the advances we are making in the DRC. So the political, their commitment has to be there, the leadership has to own it. We in the UN cannot do it, because they have the primary moral and legal responsibility to protect their citizens. So my job is to make sure that they take that responsibility very seriously and to work with them step by step to take the necessary actions. Anne: This film will go out to many people around the world, mostly women, from many different levels of society. What would you have to say to them? What kinds of advice would you have for people who are interested in international issues and don’t know what to do. Zainab: Sexual violence in conflict is a human rights issue. And I think it is a reflection of how society treats its women. It’s a crime that has to be punishable. And I think, coming from Sierra Leone, my background, I do believe, I am convinced it’s not something that we cannot deal with. But we have to have the strength and the political will to address it. And my messages to all of these women in the countries around the world is if you can do it in Sierra Leone where 60 000 women were raped, where rape was not a crime, today we have one of the most progressive laws in Sierra Leone on sexual violence. We have a special court in Sierra Leone that deals with gender-based violence as a day court, we have special magistrates trained, we have special unit in each and every police station where women can go and report, we call it the family support unit. We have witness protection support that provides support to victims and survivors. And I therefore do believe that this is a crime we must fight and we can fight. And the international community has agreed that wherever perpetrators are, whoever they are we will go after them. That is what my office says. And we work with people around the world especially women. But this is not a battle that I can fight alone. It’s a battle that we have to have the national legislators, because they make the laws. It’s a battle that we need to have the religious leaders to join because this is a moral issue. I mean women constitute over 50% of the population of each and every country and in a country like Somalia they are over 60% of the population. If you don’t respect your women, you can’t protect them during conflict, you will not be able to respect them in the peace. And they are a resource, which is needed for the development of any country because they produce over 60% of the food in Africa. They put, they are responsible for putting over 100% of the food on the table. And therefore, it’s a resource, which if you don’t take care of and protect, it’s going to affect your country. We have to ask Japan, today, I visited Japan at the invitation of the prime minister. Today he is changing the issue, because he realizes there has been a stagnation in the development process of Japan because women have not been effectively included, so he is changing it and he is spending money, billions around the world for the empowerment of women. He is going to be one of the biggest donors to UN Women. He is putting in nearly 10 million in the sexual violence in conflict because he has realized all of a sudden: “I need my women, because if they don’t contribute in the economy of my country, I will not move above where I am. I’ve stagnated.” So it’s a human rights issue, it’s a health issue, because the damage committed to women you don’t even start talking about HIV, all kinds of diseases, and the damage it has caused is with fistula and everything. It’s an economic issue. Women bring more resources on the table. You know, so it’s a social issue, a rape is not just against an individual; it’s against a family; it’s against a community. So it’s a social issue. So at the end of the day, because of all the consequences I think it’s important that we deal with it. And I want to send a message to every woman around the world that we are there for you, that wherever you are, whoever rapes you, you can be rest assured we go after that person. Anne: When we were talking earlier, you made a short comment, and I said you know how can you enter, how can you really move into and actually deal with this and you said, “where there is a command you can control.” And here you were referring to situations where rape is being used as a weapon of war. Could you just comment on that in general and that is a very interesting point to me. Zainab: One of the things, one of the six goals that I established in my office is the recognition of rape as a weapon of war. It doesn’t happen by accident. It’s premeditated. It’s planned. Somebody, somewhere gives the command because they want to either degrade, dehumanize, humiliate a particular group, part of society, to teach them a lesson, to do all sorts of things to do with shame, and therefore we believe that if it’s commanded, it can be controlled. And I think we saw that in the DRC. When I started working in the DRC, the FARDC, which is the national military and the police, actually committed almost 50% of the rape. When we started working in the military, we made a commitment to them that you need to take the necessary action that will ensure that what has happened does not happen anymore and even if it happens, you will be in a position to control it. And the reason why we said that, because the year before the military had committed mass rape in a village called Minova, where around 30 women had been raped because when the military was retreating after a military defeat. The issue is still being investigated, the UN is supporting it, the entire international community put pressure on the DRC to take action on this rape case. It was at this time that I intervened working with the minister of defense and the military forces. So we told them that next time you face this situation the thing you need to do is give the command, which president Kabila did in the senate, give the instruction to the leadership of the military that whoever commits rape, you have to investigate it, you have to prosecute them. And for all those who have been prosecuted, you have to fast track the prosecution so that we let them know that this is not acceptable. So when they wanted to go into battle the year after, that instruction was given together with the instruction by the president and force commander and we saw after that battle, the number of rapes that took place was so low because the message had gone to them; this is a crime. “If you commit it, we will investigate.” “If you, if we investigate and you are found guilty we will prosecute you,” and the responsibility is also on the commander themselves to make sure that if your troop commits the rape you are going to be held responsible, which will affect your promotion, your movement within the military. So that is why we believe that if it is commanded then we can also control it. And that is the strategy we are using, working with them, engaging them, and making sure that we know who they are, where they are, and we can hold them responsible. Anne: One of the things that struck me as we were speaking earlier, and just now again, is hard to remember, but you remind us that the people we are dealing with are human beings. I mean they can be reasoned with, perhaps; they are not just monsters. Maybe some of them are, but you remind us that this is a way of interacting, attempting to communicate, and getting through to people who are ultimately human beings. Zainab: One of the, the, the, I don’t want to say powers, the responsibilities given to me is to engage state and non-state actors, which means government functionaries and even local militia, rebel groups, as long as they are not like a terrorist group, so I have the opportunity, and one of the things we have tried to do is sit down with the military, the leadership and the command to let them know that you know what, if you commit this crime this is the consequence. And some of them don’t understand, don’t know, because they’ve been in the forest fighting, that it’s actually a war crime. And so once we work with the leadership, we go after them and we talk to them. I have two short instances, in the case of Sierra Leone after the conflict ended when the peace agreement was signed, the conflict was still ongoing; but the peace agreement had been signed and it was just difficult to get these commanders and military people to just stop committing the rape and fighting. So we were able to assemble all the commanders of the different warring factions, and at that meeting and training we brought victims, women victims, and we brought child soldiers to tell their stories to these commanders “what you did with me.” And I can tell you at that meeting, some of the commanders had tears coming down their eyes, because when you are in the battle field, I don’t want to say high, you’re on drugs, hyperactive, you’re giving command, you don’t sit down to think for one minute the consequences. But when you sit down in a closed door room with none of your body guards and things, and you see a woman sitting down saying “listen, this is what happened to me, this is where I was captured, this is what they did to me, this was what I suffered, this is what I felt, this is what I am today.” And the child soldiers talking, some of those commanders had tears were coming down their eyes. By the time we finished the meeting, the workshop and training, we had them sign commitments what not to do, and we held them to that commitment. The other example is in the DRC where we are working, where a local militia had its chief of staff, senior person of the local militia actually committed rape, and we got in touch with the commander. We said “you have to give him to us, if you don’t, this is where you will end up, in terms of your resources, the sanctions, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution, everything.” Eventually he himself handed over the individual who had committed this crime. So that is why the interaction, the engagement, is very important. They are human beings; they have mothers. I mean, they have sisters, they have daughters. So I said to them, when I address military people, I say to them “how would you feel if your mother is raped?” “How would you feel if your wife is raped?” “Or your daughter is raped?” I said “I’m sure you will kill the person who did it, you have to remember that this is somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister. Your job is to protect them, because that is what you have to protect as military people.” So once you get to talk to them, you pin them down, eventually you get them to understand that it’s a crime. And I think inevitably what we have found is to take necessary action is what is needed. Anne: My final question is no doubt unnecessary, but it is this: Are you hopeful? Zainab: Yes I am. I am because I think we’ve come a long way. And I think the understanding is now there around the world that this is something that we have to deal with, it is not a byproduct of war. It is not inevitable, it is planned and people now know the consequences. So we just have to work much harder to be able to get there, but I am, I do believe that anything that is, that you need you have to fight for. And I think that is what we are doing. So I’m extremely hopeful that there will come a time when the only place we read about this is in the history books. Anne: Thank you so much Zainab. Zainab: Thank you ZAINAB BANGURA – SHORT INTERVIEW Sexual violence in conflict is a human rights issue. And I think it is a reflection of how development of any country because they produce over 60% of the food in Africa. They put, development process of Japan because women have not been effectively included, so he is changing it, and he is spending money, billions around the world, for the empowerment of women. He is going to be one of the biggest donors to UN Women. He is putting in nearly 10 million in the sexual violence in conflict because he has realized all of a sudden: “I need my women, because if they don’t contribute in the economy of my country, I will not move above where I am. I’ve stagnated.” So it’s a human rights issue, it’s a health issue, because the damage committed to women you don’t even start talking about HIV, all kinds of diseases and the damage it has caused is with fistula and everything. It’s an economic issue. Women bring more resources on the table. You know, so it’s a social issue; a rape is not just against an individual; it’s against a family; it’s against a community. So it’s a social issue. So at the end of the day, because of all the consequences, I think it’s important that we deal with it. And I want to send a message to every woman around the world that we are there for you, that wherever you are, whoever rapes you, you can rest assured we go after that person.