A couple weeks ago, the United States delegation circulated a draft resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for the elimination of rape by governments and armed groups. This draft Âconcentrates on rape used for political and military purposes, and remains pending action before the third committee of the General Assembly.
Together with other African delegations, South Africa has continued to urge the US to amend the draft and to include the elimination of rape in all its manifestations. We have been joined by delegations from Latin America and Asia, which are also calling for a balanced text.
We have argued that it is important for the General Assembly to send a strong and a non-politicised message that rape is a brutal, despicable and violent act whether perpetrated by civilians, the military or armed groups. The UN must avoid sending out a message that could be misunderstood as suggesting different categories of rape.
The Africa group also wants to address ways in which victims of rape can be assisted, a topic that is omitted from the US draft.
Various UN human and humanitarian law instruments, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and its additional protocols, already contain strong language that condemns rape as a weapon of war. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action on Women contain language that also condemns physical violence against women and girls, including rape.
In 2000, the Security Council passed Resolution 1325, which called for the elimination of violence against women and girls during armed conflicts, including grave sexual violence. South Africa has not only acceded to these international instruments but during March 2007, when our country was president of the Security Council, we presented a presidential statement to mark International Women’s Day by reaffirming our support for Resolution 1325 and calling for the condemnation of sexual brutality against women and girls.
During the negotiation of the Rome Statute that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court, South Africa was instrumental in the inclusion of rape as a weapon of war. South African Judge Navi Pillay was elected by the UN to serve in the International Criminal Court, where she contributed to the expansion of laws that seek to deal with rape in all its manifestations.
The challenge for the General Assembly is to pronounce itself in a manner that will prevent any misunderstanding of the intention of the international community regarding rape, and to ensure that its resolution addresses all the manifestations of rape. It is important to condemn rape unequivocally no matter who the perpetrators or what the situation may be.
Angola, acting on behalf of the Africa group, introduced amendments that sought to balance the text by making certain that there was no politicisation of rape. There were other proposed changes made, including language from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference seeking protection from rape of women and girls living under foreign occupation.
Surprisingly, when Washington reacted to amendments to its draft, South Africa was singled out for blocking consensus.
Any suggestion that South Africa seeks to protect governments or groups that tolerate the use of rape is absurd. Our soldiers and civilians serve in various UN peacekeeping missions, including in the Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Nepal. South Africa subscribes to the UN zero-tolerance policy with regard to sexual abuse by peacekeepers, and any of our troops charged with rape are subject to immediate arrest and prosecution under South African laws.
The tragic fact is that the use of rape as a weapon to victimise and brutalise women and girls for any reason, including political reasons, has never stopped. We all still regret that the international community was slow to respond as women in the Balkans were systematically raped following the collapse of Yugoslavia. No one at that time called on the General Assembly to pronounce against that tragedy.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that we have to wait until it happens again anywhere else in the world. We continue to call on all UN member states, including the US, to join in a consensus condemning rape in all its forms, including in situations of conflict, and send a clear and unequivocal message that ours is to protect everyone from this scourge.
Dumisani Kumalo is South Africa’s permanent representative to the UN