Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
I wish to commend the Ministry of Human Rights and refugees for organizing this conference, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the UN Peacebuilding Fund, to mark the 25 years of SCR 1325, one of the crowning achievements of the global women’s movement. This new momentum with many actors who have demonstrated leadership and innovation in advancing the WPS Agenda ,coming to the table with new energy, new ideas and new commitments, is an important opportunity to shape the way in which we address our global challenges in the next decades and revive the transformative potential of the WPS agenda. This is all the more important, at a time when hard-won generational gains on women’s rights and gender equality are being rolled-back and reversed.
Since the adoption of resolution 1325 in 2000, the Security Council has adopted a comprehensive framework with 10 resolutions on Women, Peace and Security including 5 specifically on conflict-related sexual violence, providing a robust, clear and categorical normative framework that affirmed that there could be no security without women’s security. Resolution 1325 emphasizes the responsibility of all States to put an end to impunity and to prosecute those responsible for sexual violence crimes, while resolution 2467 calls for comprehensive legislation; the provision of legal aid; the prompt investigation, prosecution, and punishment of perpetrators and the provision of reparations to victims.
However, 15 years since my mandate was established, conflict-related sexual violence is in our daily headlines; it remains a persistent, pervasive, and profoundly devastating crime, affecting not only individual victims, but also their families and communities. It persists as a cheap and effective tactic of war, terror, torture, and political repression, used deliberately to destabilize societies, dehumanize populations, and displace communities.
My office monitors over 20 contexts globally, from reports of rape and sexual slavery in the Sudan to the systematic use of sexual violence in areas under gang control in Haiti, and multiple attacks against displaced women and girls in the DRC. I just returned from a mission in Sudan where a brutal conflict is being fought on and over the bodies of women and children with widespread sexual violence- rape, gang rape and sexual slavery are being perpetrated by all parties to the conflict.
Conflict-related sexual violence is not a cultural phenomenon; not an inevitable consequence of war and not a lesser crime. Yet, the costs of lawlessness are starkly evident in terms of failures of justice and impunity for crimes of sexual violence in conflict. While States bear the legal responsibility to end impunity and to prosecute all those responsible for crimes of conflict-related sexual violence, very few perpetrators are brought to justice so that impunity remains the norm and accountability the rare exception. I thank the organizers for placing the focus of this conference on access to justice.
While the consistent, rigorous prosecution of these crimes can translate into prevention and deterrence, lack of political will to enforce applicable law sends the opposite signal, emboldening perpetrators and demoralizing survivors, by implying it is futile, and even dangerous, to report. Unpunished crime is repeated crime.
Yet, during every field mission, survivors I meet, demand justice. That was also the case during my first mission in Bosnia in 2017, soon after taking office. I saw a profound thirst for justice and reparations and understood that there can be no recovery without justice. I realized that time alone did not and could not heal the wounds of the survivors. I also realized the extent to which the psychological, physical, economic and social repercussions of CRSV were long-lasting.
I remain grateful to all the survivors of sexual violence and children born from wartime rape I met during that mission as they helped me frame my strategic priorities for my mandate. Service providers were still meeting victims who had remained silent for 20 or more years. I met a survivor who told me that it was out of fear of rejection by her husband, that she kept silent for so long. She reported after he passed away.
Although, I saw hundreds of babies on the laps of their very young mothers, the products of forced marriage, sexual slavery and rape by Boko Haram in an IDP camp in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, babies who were called “Boko Haram snakes”, it was my meeting with Bosnia’s children born of rape, who shared with me their stories of ”rejection and discrimination” that made me realize the failure of the global response.
After two years of advocacy on the importance of a survivor-centered approach as well as the recognition of children born of rape as victims, SCR 2467 (2019) spelt out the importance of a survivor-centered approach in both prevention and response and further recognized children born of rape as victims.
Important lessons drawn over the past 8 years that I have been in office, are that the justice chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It functions as a system, or not at all. A safe and supportive environment is foundational to enabling survivors to come forward and report these historically hidden crimes. This entails meeting their basic needs such as safe shelter, medical care, sexual and reproductive healthcare, trauma counselling, and psychological support, as well as livelihood and socioeconomic reintegration assistance, in the face of social stigma, family and community rejection, and often profound personal shame. These holistic services are critical to break the chains of silence and denial that have sentenced survivors to life-long trauma, fear, and ostracism, while the perpetrators walk free.
I commend the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina for a number of important initiatives it has taken to address the issue of wartime sexual violence- from its National Strategy for War Crimes Processing of 2008 to a game-changing advancement for victims’ rights in 2024, with the adoption in the Federation of BiH of the Law on the Protection of Civilian Victims of War. The Law, in recognizing children born of wartime rape as a special category of civilian victims of war closes a significant protection gap in the WPS agenda.
However, 30 years after the end of the war, many women survivors continue to endure the lingering impacts of their trauma-economically, socially and emotionally. Access to medical care, psychological support and economic opportunities remain limited for many, stalling their journey to recovery and dignity. Progress in providing effective remedies to women survivors is too little and too slow, with many perpetrators remaining unpunished and women still struggling to rebuild their lives.
Authorities in BiH at all relevant levels must take meaningfuland prompt action to improve the status of victims who remain vulnerable and marginalized. In addition to the low and inconsistent level of prosecution of war crimes, other obstacles and challenges that persist include the fragmented nature of the legal frameworks; procedural impediments such as statutory deadlines enshrined in laws regulating the status of victims of war; the absence of a Transitional Justice Strategy as well as a state-wide reparations scheme that will provide all survivors with easy access to compensation and other forms of reparation, under equal conditions and with the same level of protection of rights.
Before I conclude, I have to say that today, I stand here in all humility to honour the invaluable contributions of the women of Bosnian and Herzegovina, whose resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity has laid the foundation for international justice that transcends borders and generations. In 1993, at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, I met Bosnian women who came to testify about the brutal sexual violence they had endured. In the shadows of conflict, these women emerged as beacons of courage and determination. Their voices once silenced by the horrors of war, reverberated powerfully on the global stage, leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – the first such war crimes court since Nuremberg and Tokyo. This tribunal marked a pivotal turning point in addressing sexual violence, setting precedents that have since guided international legal frameworks and advocacy.
The women of Bosnia have not only inspired women leaders across the world with their experience and knowledge and the peacebuilding, advocacy, and support to victims of conflict and violence which they led across the country for decades. They have changed the course of history. Their tenacity not only brought crucial recognition to their suffering but also paved the way for future generations to seek justice. Their stories catalyzed a broader understanding of sexual violence in conflict as an egregious crime that demands accountability. They were the first to articulate and demand that wartime sexual violence be treated as a grave violation of international law and not as merely a byproduct of war. The ICTY’s work in holding perpetrators accountable has illuminated pathways to justice and has fortified the foundations of international human rights law, ending an unequivocal message to the world: Crimes of sexual violence will not go unpunished.
However, as we honor these achievements, we must also confront the sobering reality that so much more remains to be done. The women of Bosnia demand that their critical contributions at the global level, not be overlooked at home and instead, be adequately supported.
We owe it to the women who have fought so valiantly and who continue to struggle in silence, to renew our commitment. It is important to bolster mechanisms that address the multifaceted needs of survivors. Today and everyday, let us stand in solidarity with the survivors of sexual violence in Bosnia with a promise to never look away, to listen and to act. By doing so, we honour their courage, echo their demands for justice and ensure a legacy of change that leaves no woman behind.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Women, Peace and Security agenda has a transformative potential with its robust normative framework that reaffirmed that sexual violence in conflict can be prevented if we act boldly and decisively. It reminds us of the responsibility that we bear to care for survivors of these heinous crimes. Today, we stand at a crossroad. We have a choice to make – either to defend the gains we have made over the past decades and turn commitments into compliance and resolutions into solutions, or to retreat in the face of the new conflicts that have erupted on almost every continent. We know which path we are dutybound to take. As we navigate the long and winding road from rhetoric to reality, the plight and rights of survivors must be our moral compass. My Office will continue to strengthen the rule of law and accountability for crimes of conflict-related sexual violence, to build bridges between civil society, service providers, and law enforcement and to provide survivor-centered justice.
Survivors need more than our solidarity. They need tangible support in the form of accountability, reparations and economic reintegration, as well as significant investment in structural prevention.
In the name of the survivors, we must deliver justice. In the name of future generations, we must make accountability the rule, rather than the rare exception. By reinforcing each link in the justice chain, and fostering synergy of action, we can and we must convert the age-old culture of impunity into a culture of prevention and deterrence.
I thank you.
Friday, 13 June 2025