April 24, 2019

U.S. guts UN resolution on combating rape in conflict zones

located:	USA
editor:	Yair Oded

After days of heated deliberations, the United Nations Security Council passed a watered-down version of a resolution on tackling rape in war zones. Among the omissions from the original version of the document are clauses referring to sexual health and women’s reproductive rights – which were removed at the request of the U.S. government who interpreted them as pro-abortion.

America’s gutting of the resolution is merely one of several recent instances in which the U.S. sought to weaken international mechanisms designed to protect the rights of women and sexual minorities.  

The resolution was originally introduced by Germany and sought to guarantee various services to victims of sexual abuse in conflicts, and highlighted the rights of female rape victims to access abortion services. The original draft also made reference to protecting LGBTQ people who may be particularly vulnerable to abuse during war.

Some nations, such as Russia and China, resisted such language, claiming the UN is ‘overstepping’ its boundaries by obliging states to compile such extensive reports on sexual violence in each conflict zone. It was the United States, however, which exhibited the fiercest objection to the text’s language, and threatened to veto the resolution should it be pitched in its original incarnation.

According to The Guardian, the specific clause that sparked the American delegation’s fury was one that: “[U]rges United Nations entities and donors to provide non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health, psychosocial, legal and livelihood support and other multi-sectoral services for survivors of sexual violence, taking into account the specific needs of persons with disabilities.”

Finally, the U.S. envoy got its way and voted to pass a version of the resolution that eliminated any mention of services to survivors of sexual violence, references to reproductive health rights, and the formation of a UN division that would monitor progress on ending sexual violence in conflict zones. The U.S. also pushed for removing the word “gender” from the document, worrying it would imply that they support the recognition of transgender rights.  

While the resolution in its current form does break ground by being the first UN document to recognise the rights of children being born as a result of rape and acknowledge the experiences of boys and men when it comes to sexual abuse – it nonetheless rescinds decades of progress achieved on women’s rights in the international sphere.

The removal of key clauses from the resolution by the U.S. was heavily criticised by several European nations, including Germany, the U.K., France, and Belgium as well as numerous NGOs. Former UN special advisor on sexual violence and the current director of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute thinktank, Jessica Neuwirth, had told The Guardian, “It’s shocking that the United States turned its back on these girls and jeopardised this urgently needed security council resolution.”  

As a body, the United Nations has always been vulnerable to the interests, whims, and demands of its member states – whose agenda often calls for the erosion of human rights as opposed to their protection. Furthermore, UN resolutions generally rely on broad, delicate language that lacks substance and fails to translate principals into action.

Under the current U.S. government, human rights, and particularly those of women and sexual minorities, face an even greater threat of abandonment and encroachment by international organisations, as America aligned itself with a group of nations who utilise their prominent role on the global stage in order to undermine women’s right to health, prosperity, and self-determination.

Photo: UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran