Question 2.0

PHOTO | NICOLE TUNG

CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE

report of the secretary-general on

S/2018/250 16 April 2018

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I N T R O D U C T I O N 1. The present report, which covers the period from January to December 2017, is submitted pursuant to Security Council resolution 2106 (2013), in which the Council requested me to report annually on the implementation of resolutions 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009) and 1960 (2010) and to recommend strategic actions. The reporting period was marked by the liberation of territories and the attendant release or escape of numerous women and girls formerly held by armed or terrorist groups. That development has lent urgency to efforts to alleviate the stigma associated with sexual violence, which can have life-long, and sometimes lethal, repercussions for both survivors and for children conceived through rape. It also underscores the importance of socioeconomic reintegration support aimed at restoring community cohesion in the wake of war. In the context of the mass migration crisis, sexual violence continued to serve as a driver of forced displacement and a factor inhibiting the return of uprooted communities to their places of origin. In the year under review, sexual violence was also used by belligerent parties to attack and alter the ethnic or religious identity of persecuted groups. As an integral component of strategies to secure the control of land and resources, conflict-related sexual violence has devastated the physical and economic security of displaced and rural women and women belonging to minority groups.

2. 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. That link may be evident in the profile of the perpetrator, who is often affiliated with a State or non- State armed group, which includes terrorist entities, the profile of the victim, who is frequently an actual or perceived member of a political, ethnic or religious minority group or targeted on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, the climate of impunity, which is generally associated with State collapse, cross-border consequences such as displacement or trafficking, and/or violations of a ceasefire agreement. The term also encompasses trafficking in persons when committed in situations of conflict for the purpose of sexual violence or exploitation.

3. While many settings are affected by conflict- related sexual violence, in the present report I focus on 19 countries where verifiable information exists. It should be read in conjunction with my eight previous reports on the subject, which cumulatively provide the basis for the listing of 47 parties (see annex). The majority of listed parties are non-State actors, with seven having been designated as terrorist groups on the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida sanctions list. Those national military and police forces that are listed are required to engage with my Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict to develop specific, time-bound commitments and action plans to address violations, as several have done since 2010. Cessation of violations and effective implementation of commitments are key factors in the consideration of the delisting of parties.

4. The present report is based on information verified by the United Nations, unless indicated otherwise. In that regard, the presence of women’s protection advisers, who are responsible for convening the monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements on combating conflict-related sexual violence in the field, has improved the availability and quality of information. Currently, 21 women’s protection advisers are deployed in seven mission settings. All peacekeeping missions with mandates that include the protection of civilians have established the monitoring arrangements and incorporated early warning indicators of conflict-related sexual violence into their broader protection structures. Two special political missions have also established such arrangements.

5. National authorities and civil society are working with the United Nations to prevent and address conflict-related sexual violence in the countries mentioned in the present report. Efforts include legal reforms, legal assistance programmes, community security programmes, the development of specialized services for victims and witnesses, awareness-raising campaigns and rehabilitation programmes. Support for country-level assistance on justice and the rule of law has been coordinated and scaled up through the Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Corrections, and peacekeeping missions continue to implement their mandate of protection of civilians, prioritizing the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence.

I.

“rape and sexual violence in conflict are tactics of terrorism and war, used strategically to humiliate, degrade and destroy, and often to pursue a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They should never be downplayed as war’s inevitable by-product. sexual violence is a threat to every individual’s right to a life of dignity, and to humanity’s collective peace and security.”

- united nations secretary-general antónio guterres

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6 . Strengthening the capacity of national institutions is critical to ensuring accountability for past crimes, and for prevention and deterrence of future crimes. In that regard, the Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, in accordance with its mandate under Security Council resolution 1888 (2009), continues to work closely with Governments and United Nations missions and country teams on the ground to support the investigation, prosecution of perpetrators and adjudication of such crimes under civilian and military systems, legislative reform, the protection of victims and witnesses and reparative justice. Situated in the Office of the Special Representative, the Team of Experts is composed of specialists from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Development Programme supplemented by a roster of experts with a range of specializations. To date, engagements of the Team of Experts have been conducted in the Central African Republic, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Iraq, Liberia, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and the Sudan, as well as with regional organizations such as the African Union, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region and the League of Arab States. During the reporting period, its support to national authorities and the United Nations in various settings have contributed to achievements of Member States, including in the successful prosecutions for rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the establishment of a specialized police unit for sexual violence in the Central African Republic; the development of strategies for investigating and prosecuting sexual violence perpetrated by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) in Iraq; and the formulation of an action plan with the South Sudanese Armed Forces to strengthen accountability. In Guinea, the Team of Experts continued to support the investigation of crimes of sexual violence perpetrated in Conakry in September 2009, a nationally led effort to combat impunity, with technical support from the international community. The Government has since indicted 17 high- ranking military officials, conducted over 450 hearings, which included the testimony of at least 200 victims and witnesses of sexual violence, and increased judicial cooperation with neighbouring countries, which has led to the arrest and extradition of alleged perpetrators. The Team of Experts has committed to supporting preparation of the trials, including in the areas of victim and witness protection, the design of a reparations strategy, sensitization, outreach and resource mobilization. The work of the Team of Experts demonstrates that, with

political will and dedicated assistance, Governments can hold perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence accountable and deliver justice for victims.

7. The United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict network, which consists of 14 United Nations entities and is chaired by my Special Representative, aims at strengthening the prevention of and response to sexual violence through a coordinated, coherent and comprehensive approach. In 2017, through the United Nations Action multi-partner trust fund, funding was provided to support a project on children conceived through rape in Iraq, and to support the Gender-based Violence Information Management System, an inter-agency initiative that enables humanitarian actors to safely collect, store, analyse and share data. In 2017, the network continued to fund the post of senior women’s protection adviser in Iraq and successfully advocated for its inclusion in the regular budget of the mission. The network also provided financing for an adviser to support the development of a national strategy on gender-based violence, including sexual violence in conflict, in Mali. United Nations Action continued to fund a joint programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which aims at addressing the legacy of conflict-related sexual violence, and five projects in the Middle East and North Africa, which primarily support Syrian and Iraqi survivors, including those who are refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. The project in Jordan contributed to the adoption of a national action plan on women and peace and security, which provides a protective framework for refugees who are survivors of sexual violence. In 2017, the United Nations Action network conducted joint technical support missions to Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to help to improve the response to conflict-related sexual violence.

8. Recognizing the existence of acts of sexual exploitation and abuse in the United Nations, I have pledged to dramatically improve the way the Organization prevents and responds to such conduct by any United Nations personnel. In my report on special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (A/72/751), I provided an update on progress in implementing a new strategic approach, led by the Special Coordinator on Improving the United Nations Response to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, including the appointment of a victims’ rights advocate, improved transparency and information-sharing and the signing by 89 Member States of a voluntary compact committing to a policy of zero tolerance of sexual exploitation and abuse.

Sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism: overview of current and emerging concerns

9. A decade ago, the Security Council adopted the groundbreaking resolution 1820 (2008), which elevated the issue of conflict-related sexual violence on its agenda to a threat to security and an impediment to the restoration of peace. The recognition of the fact that such incidents are not random or isolated but integral to the operations, ideology and economic strategy of a range of State actors and non-State armed groups marked a shift in the classic security paradigm. Wars are still being fought on and over the bodies of women, to control their production and reproduction by force. Across regions, sexual violence has been perpetrated in public or witnessed by loved ones, to terrorize communities and fracture families through the violation of taboos, signifying that nothing is sacred and no one is safe. While significant normative progress has been

achieved in recent years, it is also clear that words on paper are not yet matched by facts on the ground. Through successive resolutions, the Council has called for a complete halt to sexual violence in conflict zones. The issue has since been included in an increasing number of peace mandates, designation criteria of sanctions regimes, training curricula of security sector institutions, mediation processes and jurisprudence of national and international tribunals. As the issue has become part of security discourse, we must remain vigilant to ensure that such atrocities are never “normalized” or become entrenched in post-conflict societies, because countless women, girls, men and boys still live under the shadow of sexual violence.

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10. The rise or resurgence of conflict and violent extremism, with the ensuing proliferation of arms, mass displacement and collapse of the rule of law, triggers patterns of sexual violence. That was evident across a range of settings in 2017, as insecurity spread to new regions of the Central African Republic, as violence surged in Ituri, the three Kasai provinces, North and South Kivu and Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as conflict engulfed South Sudan, as “ethnic cleansing” under the guise of clearance operations unfolded in northern Rakhine, Myanmar, and in besieged areas of the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen. In each case, the atrocities were presaged by violations of human rights, including discrimination on the basis of gender and group identity. In addition, in 2017 the space for civil society continued to shrink, and the work of defending human rights became ever more dangerous, with activists being raped for denouncing sexual violence, witnesses intimidated for testifying at trials for war crimes and prominent women silenced by the threat of rape.

11. The preponderance of victims were politically and economically marginalized women and girls, living beyond the reach and protection of the institutions that ensure the rule of law. They are concentrated in remote, rural areas, which have the least access to quality services, and in refugee and displacement settings. A risk factor correlated with exposure to sexual violence is the increase in female-headed households in the wake of war: in Yemen, their prevalence rose from 9 per cent before the conflict to 30 per cent to date; in post-conflict Sri Lanka, they account for one quarter of all households.

12. In 2017, sexual violence continued to be employed as a tactic of war, terrorism, torture and repression, including the targeting of victims on the basis of their actual or perceived ethnic, religious, political or clan affiliation. In many cases, the intent and impact of such violence was to forcibly displace and disperse the targeted community, with corrosive effects on social cohesion. That alarming trend is common to a range of otherwise diverse conflicts examined herein, including in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan. In those cases, to varying degrees, the strategic nature of sexual violence was evident in the selective targeting of victims from specific ethnic, religious or political groups, mirroring the fault lines of the wider conflict or crisis and, in some cases, in the explicit enactment of the nationalist or extremist ideologies espoused by the perpetrators. In such cases, conflict-related sexual violence has served as an expression of ethnic hatred, even “ethnic cleansing”, often accompanied by insults based on the victim’s identity and presumed allegiance. It was also noted in

several settings that women and girls rarely report sexual violence by members of their own community in times of war, owing to overarching political and ethnic loyalties and pressures.

13. Sexual violence has been employed by the armed and violent extremist groups named in the present report as a vehicle of persecution, directed in particular towards women and girls of reproductive age, as the perceived transmitters of cultural and ethnic identity and the symbolic repositories of familial and national “honour”. Those patterns of violence are embedded in the underlying structural conditions, including inequality, discrimination on the basis of gender and the neglect of the rights of minority groups, often exacerbated by militarization. Sexual violence in turn impedes the realization of other rights. It continued to have a chilling effect on the participation of women in the political, economic and security sectors in contexts such as Afghanistan, Burundi and Libya. Moreover, a pattern observed across all 19 countries considered herein is that the threat of sexual violence constrains freedom of movement: the more militarized an area, the more constrained civilian existence becomes, with devastating effects on lives and livelihoods. 14. The effects of sexual violence echo across generations, through trauma, stigma, poverty, poor health and unwanted pregnancy. The children whose existence emanates from that violence have been labelled “bad blood” or “children of the enemy”, and alienated from their mother’s social group. Their vulnerability may leave them susceptible to recruitment, radicalization and trafficking. In South Sudan, sexual violence has become so prevalent that members of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan have described women and girls as “collectively traumatized”.

15. In the context of mass migration, sexual violence continued to be a push factor for forced displacement in contexts such as Colombia, Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Horn of Africa and elsewhere and remained a heightened risk in transit and in refugee and displacement settings. Many women and girls were subjected to sexual extortion by camp officials or by migrant smugglers in exchange for their assistance. The fear of rape as a factor inhibiting the return of displaced communities to their homelands became more prevalent over the past year. Many women are reticent to return to locations still under the control of the forces that compelled them to flee, in particular in the absence of accountability, as noted by Rohingya refugees. Rapes have been reported in villages to which displaced Darfuri women have returned, and refugee women re-entering Burundi have been sexually harassed in retaliation for having fled.

16. Conflict-related sexual violence has led to the dispossession of land, resources and identity. In resolution 2331 (2016), the Security Council recognized that the threat and use of sexual violence was a tactic used in the shadow economy of conflict and terrorism, often forcing populations to flee contested territory, allowing aggressors to seize control of the assets left behind. It has particularly severe effects on the physical and economic security of rural women; indeed, the percentage of women who hold legal title to land is halved in the aftermath of war. In conflict-affected settings, sexual violence is frequently perpetrated in the course of forced evictions and raids, which are rife with abductions for the purpose of ransoming or trafficking.

17. There is a discernible pattern of combatants profiting from sexual violence, while communities suffer increased economic hardship. Women have been sexually assaulted while conducting livelihood activities that are prescribed on the basis of gender, such as trading at marketplaces, tending fields and fetching firewood, as seen in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and the Sudan. In certain cases, combatants have been permitted to rape with impunity or with the tacit approval of their commanders, who rationalize the practice as a form of compensation. Combatants raid, pillage, abduct, extort, ransom, trade and traffic to supplement their

personal micro-economies, while women suffer structural discrimination at the macroeconomic level, which reduces their resilience to financial and security shocks. Conflict thus compounds the gender gap in access to land and other productive resources, by further reducing women to an expendable “currency” in the political economy of war and terrorism.

18. Although it is increasingly clear that self-reliance, economic empowerment and having a political voice are the most effective forms of protection from sexual violence, desperate families are increasingly resorting to harmful and negative coping mechanisms, including child marriage, polygamy, withdrawal from educational and employment opportunities, transactional sex and/or “survival sex” and commercial sexual exploitation. The despair wrought by protracted conflict has given rise to further repression in the name of protection. In countries such as the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and Yemen, rates of child marriage are among the highest in the world; they have also spiked among Syrian refugees. Armed, terrorist and transnational criminal groups directly profit from trafficking, with victims being either abducted or deceived by false promises of lucrative job offers, their dreams of finding safety and opportunity becoming nightmares of sexual slavery and forced prostitution.

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19. The persistent barriers to reporting are as much socioeconomic and cultural as they are logistical, rendering sexual violence perpetrated in wartime among the least reported crimes. For many survivors, fear of rape is swiftly followed by fear of rejection, with communities being more likely to punish the victim than the perpetrator. In addition to the debilitating physical and psychological trauma, the stigma that follows in the wake of rape can have lasting, potentially lethal, repercussions, including: “honour killings”, suicide, diseases, HIV and sexually transmitted infections going untreated, traumatic fistula, unsafe abortion, maternal mortality, poverty and high-risk survival behaviour. While the stigma in the wake of rape is almost universal, its manifestations vary widely. For male survivors, sexual violence remains shrouded in cultural taboos, with few, if any, support networks available. Over 60 countries still do not include male victims within the scope of sexual violence legislation, and many men and boys remain silent for fear of ostracism or accusations of homosexuality, in particular where it is criminalized. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals experience stigma and exclusion in refugee settings, notably in the Middle East, with some citing fear of sexual violence as a factor inducing their flight from the Syrian Arab Republic. Children conceived through rape in wartime often struggle with issues of identity and belonging for decades after the end of war, as seen in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nepal and elsewhere. Colombia is the only country in which children conceived through rape in wartime are legally recognized as victims, although it has been difficult for them to gain access to redress without being stigmatized. Socioeconomic reintegration support, including stigma-alleviation efforts, should be a part of post-conflict reconstruction, however, the limited rehabilitation packages available tend to focus on men who have disengaged from armed and extremist groups, with scant assistance available for women. Societies tend to view women and children formerly associated with violent extremist groups as “affiliates” rather than victims, and, in some cases, actions by the authorities have reinforced those suspicions. Local-level officials in Iraq have reportedly designated children as “Da’esh terrorists” on their birth certificates, and, in Libya, Nigeria and Somalia, returning women and girls have been detained as “accomplices”. Fear of reprisals has driven renewed displacement, with some survivors relocating to escape abuse by their own family and community. Former abductees have even been forced to choose between keeping their children conceived through rape and returning to their families of origin. To alleviate stigma, concerted engagement with religious and traditional leaders is required to help to shift harmful social norms around honour, shame and victim-blaming.

20. Despite the increased awareness of the issue, most incidents of mass rape continue to be met with mass impunity, as conflict shreds the social fabric and social contract, subverting the rule of law. To date, not a single member of ISIL or Boko Haram has been prosecuted for offenses of sexual violence. The accumulation of unresolved crimes fuels new cycles of violence, vengeance and vigilantism, which are inimical to reconciliation. The chronic underrepresentation of women in the justice and security sector impedes reporting and response efforts. In some cases, suspects have been released from custody with the collusion of local officials who share their political or ethnic affiliation, and victims have been retraumatized. The practice of mandatory reporting to the police, including as a prerequisite to gaining access to health care, deters survivors from seeking services in several settings. Even where that requirement has been waived in law, the change has yet to be realized in practice. Transitional justice presents a window of opportunity for tackling systemic discrimination, yet structurally transformative reparations continue to elude survivors of sexual violence. It is still challenging to ensure that they are recognized as legitimate victims of war and terrorism, which would guarantee equality before the law and pave the way for meaningful redress. Most cases are referred to customary or traditional courts, including an estimated 90 per cent of cases in Somalia and South Sudan, which often require victims of rape to marry the perpetrator. Thirty-seven countries still exempt perpetrators of rape from prosecution when they are married to, or subsequently marry, their victims. Such practices fail to provide victims with a remedy, prospective perpetrators with a deterrent or society with a precedent for the future.

21. In 2017, some progress was made towards combating cultures of impunity, such as in Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Sudan, where national penal codes were brought into alignment with international standards by delinking rape from adultery. Pursuant to Security Council resolution 2106 (2013), several States continued to implement joint communiqués and action plans to curb conflict-related sexual violence, notably in the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Iraq, Somalia and South Sudan. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, whose army was the first party to be delisted pursuant to that mandate, no new cases of sexual violence by members of the Ivorian security forces were recorded in 2017, which illustrates what is possible when political will and comprehensive risk mitigation measures are put into place. Progress was noted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where two emblematic cases were prosecuted in 2017: a colonel of the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC) was convicted for the war crimes of rape and pillage affecting

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150 civilians in Musenyi, South Kivu; and a member of Parliament in South Kivu was convicted of a crime against humanity for his role in the abduction and rape of 39 children in Kavumu. In South Sudan, trials of Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers for the rape and gang rape of humanitarian workers at the Terrain hotel compound commenced, although no senior commanders had been indicted. In June, in a landmark ruling in the case concerning Bosco Ntaganda, the International Criminal Court decided that international humanitarian law did not contain a general rule that categorically excluded members of an armed group from protection against crimes, including crimes of rape or sexual slavery, committed by members of the same armed group. In addition, the Court continued its hearings on reparations for victims of sexual violence in the case concerning Jean-Pierre Bemba.

22. Transitional justice must help to address the underlying causes of conflict and crises. As I have emphasized since the start of my tenure, the international community spends far more time and resources responding to crises than preventing them. It is critical to rebalance our

approach by upholding human rights, ensuring sustainable development and harnessing the power of the participation of women, which makes peace agreements more durable, societies more resilient and economies more dynamic. As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we must address the structural drivers of conflict and build stable, equitable societies by reinforcing institutions that uphold the rule of law. My Special Representative Pramila Patten took office in June and has since articulated a three- pillar priority strategy that aligns with that approach, namely: (a) converting cultures of impunity into cultures of deterrence; (b) addressing structural gender-based inequality as the root cause and invisible driver of sexual violence in times of war and peace; and (c) fostering national ownership and leadership for a sustainable, survivor-centred response that empowers civil society and women’s rights defenders. Many of the atrocities enumerated in the present report could have been prevented if more had been done, early and collectively. I therefore urge the international community to give that agenda the investment and action it deserves, so as to replace horror with hope.

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Sexual violence in conflict-affected settings

23. Reporting of and response efforts to sexual violence across Afghanistan remained limited, owing to instability, inadequate services, access constraints, discriminatory cultural practices and a climate of impunity in which those who defend women’s rights face threats from the Taliban and other anti-Government elements. In 2017, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 53 cases of sexual violence against women and girls, of which 3 were verified as conflict- related sexual violence committed by members of illegal armed groups and the local police. UNAMA also verified four cases of sexual violence against boys, three by members of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces and one by members of the Taliban, including incidents of bacha bazi, a practice involving the sexual abuse of boys by men in positions of power. UNAMA received a further 78 credible allegations of bacha bazi that could not be verified due to the sensitivities involved. Efforts led by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission resulted in the criminalization of the practice in the revised Penal Code, which entered into force in February 2018. The revised legislation also incorporates provisions that bring the definition of rape closer to aligning with international standards, rectifying the prior conflation of rape with adultery, which had discouraged reporting.

24. With regard to response, a major challenge is that women still comprise just 1.8 per cent of the Afghan National Police. In October, the Ministry of Interior Affairs inaugurated separate station facilities, including interview rooms, for female officers in Herat and Kabul as part of efforts to recruit and retain more women. The Ministry has also taken steps to develop a complaints mechanism for reporting sexual harassment, assaults and threats against female officers. Following the 2015 launch of its national action plan on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the Government tabled a budget for implementation that includes measures to address sexual violence.

Recommendation

25. I urge the Government to reinforce the capacity of its justice and security sector to provide accountability for crimes of sexual violence, including by vetting the armed and police forces for suspected perpetrators and increasing the representation of women. I further call upon the Government to allocate adequate resources for the implementation of its national action plan and to put into place comprehensive measures to implement its revised Penal Code.

Afghanistan

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III. Afghanistan

Iraq

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42. The liberation of Mosul, Tall Afar and other areas from the control of ISIL in 2017 marked a major milestone for Iraq and the region. Government data indicate that 100 Yazidi and Christian women and children were rescued during the operation in Mosul in July, with a further 25 freed following the operation in Tall Afar, which ended in August. Turkmen Shi’a women and girls were also reportedly rescued during those offensives. Sunni women and girls living under ISIL occupation also endured forced and coerced marriages, in which rape was used as a weapon of punishment for disobeying ISIL rules. Overall, as at November 2017, 3,202 civilians (1,135 women, 903 girls, 335 men and 829 boys) had been released from ISIL captivity, while a further 3,215 (1,510 women and girls and 1,705 men and boys) remain missing.

43. The United Nations verified nine cases of conflict- related sexual violence during the period under review, affecting seven girls and two boys. It included forced marriage to ISIL fighters in the cases involving girls and abduction in the cases concerning boys, with a 16-year-old boy being held by an armed actor suspected of ISIL affiliation who severely beat his genitals and threatened him with other forms of sexual assault and a 14-year-old boy who was raped for three consecutive nights in an ISIL training camp. As ISIL militants retreat into the Syrian Arab Republic, there is a heightened risk of the sale, trade and trafficking of women and children who remain under their control. Concerns have also been raised about a practice of local officials registering children on their birth certificate with the designation “ISIL terrorist” on the basis of assumptions about their parentage.

44. Following the appointment of a senior women’s protection adviser in February, monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements on conflict-related sexual violence were established to expand the evidence base for action. The United Nations continues to support the Government in building its capacity for the timely delivery of multisectoral services for survivors of sexual violence, including scaling up the provision of psychosocial, medical and legal assistance in areas with a high concentration of internally displaced persons. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has supported a relocation programme, through which 844 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and members of their family were referred for resettlement. Progress has also been made in advancing the implementation of the joint communiqué on the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence signed between the Government and the United Nations on 23 September 2016. Prime Minister of Iraq Haider Al Abadi issued a statement on 19 June 2017 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, underscoring his commitment to the full implementation of the communiqué. Pursuant to that agreement, the Government is working to ensure that a gender perspective is included in its national counter-terrorism strategy. My Special Representative visited Iraq in February 2018 to finalize an implementation plan for the communiqué in consultation with high-level focal points in Baghdad and Erbil.

45. Justice and reparations for crimes of conflict-related sexual violence, which particularly affected women and girls belonging to ethnic and religious minority groups pursuant to the ISIL policy to suppress, expel or destroy those groups, will be critical to both intracommunal and intercommunal reconciliation. Currently, trials are being conducted under antiterrorism legislation, which does not explicitly designate sexual violence as a crime. Moreover, international crimes are not yet reflected in national law. The investigative team to be established by the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council 2379 (2017) is expected to play an important role in supporting national efforts to hold ISIL to account. Another challenge is the continued underreporting of sexual violence, owing to insecurity, fear of retaliation and the prevailing context of gender inequality and harmful social norms relating to “family honour”, compounded by the presumption of “guilt by association” facing women and girls forcibly married to ISIL fighters. Negative coping mechanisms have been adopted in situations where survivors are deprived of the material support of their families, including early marriage, in particular in displacement settings. Declarations by Yazidi and Sunni spiritual leaders that encourage solidarity with survivors of rape and children conceived as a result have helped to foster family reunification. One such example is the ruling of the Sunni Endowment Diwan on Islam’s position on raped women of February 2017. Conversely, amendments proposed in November 2017 to the Personal Status Law No. 188 (1959) to authorize polygamy and lower the age of marriage sparked national and international concern, before being quashed by the women’s parliamentary committee.

Recommendation 46. I call upon the Government to ensure that offenses of sexual violence are prosecuted as standalone crimes, including in the context of terrorism trials, and that services, including shelters operated in collaboration with women’s civil society groups, are protected and scaled up as part of efforts to ensure the socioeconomic reintegration of women and children released from ISIL captivity and to refrain from recording prejudicial information on birth certificates.

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R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S VI.

97. I URGE THE SECURITY COUNCIL:

(a) To include sexual violence as part of the designation criteria for sanctions, to ensure that dedicated expertise on gender and conflict-related sexual violence informs the work of sanctions committees and monitoring entities and to continue to invite my Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict to share information with sanctions committees, as appropriate; in the context of the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities, to ensure that any person or entity who sells or transfers funds to ISIL or other terrorist groups directly or indirectly in connection with sexual violence or exploitation would be eligible for listing;

(b) To continue to address the nexus between trafficking in persons and conflict-related sexual violence, further to resolutions 2331 (2016) and 2388 (2017);

(c) To support engagement with State and non-State parties to conflict for specific commitments on conflict-

related sexual violence, in line with resolution 2106 (2013), and to monitor their compliance, including through the Informal Expert Group on Women and Peace and Security;

(d) To employ all means at its disposal to influence State and non-State parties to conflict to comply with international law, including by referring to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court situations in which one or more crimes under the Rome Statute appear to have been committed; referrals should address situations in which sexual violence has been committed, commanded or condoned, through the failure to prevent or punish such acts;

(e) To give due consideration to the early warning signs of sexual violence in its monitoring of conflict situations, especially in relation to periods of rising violent extremism, political instability, elections and mass population movements, and to take appropriate action, including condemning any incitement to sexual violence;

(f) To use its periodic field visits to focus attention on concerns regarding sexual violence, soliciting the views of affected communities and survivors’ associations, and to consider visiting proposed sites of return of internally displaced persons and refugees to assess the safety conditions and availability of services;

(g) To support the accelerated deployment of women’s protection advisers, in order to facilitate the implementation of resolutions on sexual violence in conflict, and to support the inclusion of those posts in regular budgets.

96. The following recommendations reflect an urgent need for the international community to support those struggling to protect survivors and to prevent women, girls, men and boys from falling victim to such heinous crimes. This requires, in particular, support to local non- governmental organizations and United Nations entities. A concerted effort to enhance prevention, early warning and swift responses will require dedicated human and financial resources commensurate with the scale of the challenge.

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A N N E X

98. I ENCOURAGE MEMBER STATES AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

(a) To ensure that victims of sexual violence perpetrated by armed and/or terrorist groups are recognized as legitimate victims of conflict and/or terrorism, in order to benefit from reparations and redress, including through the revision of national legal and policy frameworks, whenever necessary;

(b) To put into place constitutional, legislative and institutional arrangements to comprehensively address conflict-related sexual violence and prevent its recurrence, paying particular attention to ethnic and religious minority groups, women in rural or remote areas, displaced populations, persons with disabilities, male survivors, women and children associated with armed groups, women and children released from situations of captivity, forced marriage, sexual slavery and trafficking by armed groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons;

(c) To integrate legal support with medical and psychosocial care and extend the reach of these services to rural areas;

(d) To give due consideration to recognizing conflict-related sexual violence as a form of persecution that may serve as grounds for asylum or refugee status and to consider resettlement support for survivors, such as through “special quota projects”, which provide temporary protection through the evacuation and humanitarian admission of vulnerable women and children to third countries, and to ensure that refugee-receiving countries adopt measures to mitigate the risk of sexual violence, to make services available to survivors and to provide them with the option to document their cases for future accountability processes;

(e) To give consideration to clarifying the legal status of undocumented refugee children, including children conceived as a result of rape, avoiding prejudicial practices in birth registration and securing the right of mothers to confer their nationality upon their children;

(f) To support safe and sustainable returns of displaced and refugee communities to their places of origin or choice, by providing conditions of safety and dignity that include the provision of services, the recovery of property and possessions and accountability for perpetrators, including of crimes of sexual violence;

(g) To support community mobilization campaigns to help to shift the stigma of sexual violence from the victims to the perpetrators, including by engaging with religious and traditional leaders, as well as local journalists and human rights defenders;

(h) To increase the representation of women in national police services and to establish specialized units within the police;

(i) To ensure that signed ceasefire and peace agreements contain provisions that, at a minimum, stipulate sexual violence as a prohibited act in the definition of ceasefire, to ensure that expertise on gender issues and conflict- related sexual violence is included in ceasefire monitoring and verification arrangements and teams and to call upon mediators to include such expertise as part of mediation support teams;

(j) To ensure that efforts to document and investigate international crimes prioritize sexual violence and that those

efforts are survivor-centred, well-coordinated, conducted by qualified individuals and guided by the principles of security, confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent;

(k) To enhance cooperation in terms of information-sharing and documentation, assistance to victims of trafficking, the training of security forces, extradition and legal assistance and the exchange of good practices in combatting sexual violence;

(l) To train peacekeeping personnel on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, on ways to address conflict-related sexual violence, and on identifying and responding to indicators of conflict-related trafficking in persons, as a mandatory component of pre-deployment training;

(m) To ensure that the national forces listed in the annex to the present report, or those listed for grave violations against children, are not deployed to peacekeeping operations;

(n) To address funding shortfalls for programming on combating sexual and gender-based violence and for sexual and reproductive health care in conflict-affected settings and to draw upon the expertise of the United Nations system in the areas of justice and rule of law, service delivery and coordination, including by supporting the Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict and the United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict network, in particular, ensuring sustainable and regular funding for their work.

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List of parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict on the agenda of the Security Council The following list does not purport to be comprehensive, but rather includes parties for which credible information is available. It should be noted that the names of countries appear only to indicate the locations where those parties are suspected of committing violations.

Parties in the Central African Republic

Non-State actors:

(a) Lord’s Resistance Army; (b) Ex-Séléka factions: Union pour la paix en centrafrique, Mouvement patriotique pour la

centrafrique, Front populaire pour la renaissance de la centrafrique — Gula faction, Front populaire pour la renaissance de la Centrafrique — Abdoulaye Hussein faction, Rassemblement patriotique pour le renouveau de la Centrafrique;

(c) Front démocratique du peuple centrafricain — Abdoulaye Miskine; (d) Révolution et justice;

(e) Retour, réclamation et réhabilitation — General Sidiki; (f) Anti-balaka groups.

Parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

1. Non-State actors:

(a) Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain; (b) Allied Democratic Forces; (c) Forces pour la défense du Congo; (d) Bana Mura militias;

(e) Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda; (f) Force de résistance patriotique de l’Ituri; (g) Kamuina Nsapu; (h) Lord’s Resistance Army; (i) Nduma défence du Congo; (j) Mai-Mai Kifuafua; (k) All Mai-Mai Simba factions;

(l) Nyatura; (m) Nduma défence du Congo-Renové; (n) Mai-Mai Raia Mutomboki; (o) All Twa militia.

2. State actors:

(a) Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo;* (b) Police nationale congolaise.*

Parties in Iraq

Non-State actors:

(a) Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Parties in Mali

Non-State actors:

(a) Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad; (b) Ansar Eddine; (c) Mouvement pour l’unification et le jihad en Afrique de l’ouest; (d) Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb; (e) Groupe d’autodéfense des Touaregs Imghad et leurs alliés.

Parties in Myanmar

State actors:

(a) Myanmar Armed Forces (Tatmadaw).

*Indicates that the party has committed to adopting measures to address conflict-related sexual violence.

A N N E X

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Parties in Somalia

1. Non-State actors:

(a) Al-Shabaab.

2. State actors:

(a) Somali National Army;* (b) Somali Police Force* (and allied militia); (c) Puntland military.

Parties in the Sudan

1. Non-State actors:

(a) Justice and Equality Movement.

2. State actors:

(a) Sudanese Armed Forces; (b) Rapid Support Forces. Parties in South Sudan

1. Non-State actors:

(a) Lord’s Resistance Army; (b) Justice and Equality Movement; (c) Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition — pro-Machar;* (d) Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition — pro-Taban Deng.

2. State actors:

(a) Sudan People’s Liberation Army;* (b) South Sudan National Police Service.*

* Indicates that the party has committed to adopting measures to address conflict-related sexual violence.

Parties in the Syrian Arab Republic

1. Non-State actors:

(a) Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant; (b) Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Nusrah Front); (c) Army of Islam; (d) Ahrar al-Sham; (e) Pro-Government forces, including the National Defence Forces militia.

2. State actors:

(a) Syrian armed forces; (b) Intelligence services.

Other parties of concern on the agenda of the Security Council

Non-State actors:

(a) Boko Haram.

A N N E X

Arabic/ϱΏέω: http://undocs.org/ar/S/2018/250

Chinese/中文: http://undocs.org/zh/S/2018/250

English: http://undocs.org/en/S/2018/250

French/Français: http://undocs.org/fr/S/2018/250

Russian/ˀ̡̛̱̭̭̜: http://undocs.org/ru/S/2018/250

Spanish/Español: http://undocs.org/es/S/2018/250

The ninth annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (S/2018/250), submitted pursuant to paragraph 22 of Security Council resolution 2106 (2013), focuses on sexual violence as both a tactic of war and a tactic of terrorism. The report spans 19 country situations, covering the period of January to December 2017, based on cases documented by the United Nations system. It includes 13 conflict settings, four post-conflict countries, and two additional situations of concern. It highlights patterns of violations, as well as challenges faced and actions taken by States to protect women, girls, men and boys from such violence. To chart the way forward, each country section includes a targeted, actionable recommendation, building on the recommendations made in previous reporting cycles, as well as a set of overarching policy recommendations that outline prevention and response measures at the national, regional and international levels.

For media/other inquiries, please contact:

Letitia Anderson [email protected]

This report is available in all official United Nations languages here:

designer | milena sonnenberg

office of the special representative of the secretary-general on

sexual violence in conflict