General Assembly
Sixty-seventh session
Agenda item 33
Prevention of armed conflict
Security Council
Sixty-eighth year
Report of the Secretary-General
I. Introduction
The present report, which covers the period from December 2011 to December 2012, is submitted pursuant to paragraph 18 of Security Council resolution 1960 (2010), by which the Council requested me to submit annual reports on the implementation of resolutions 1820 (2008) and 1888 (2009), and to recommend appropriate actions. The report also responds to the requests made by the Council in its presidential statement S/PRST/2012/23. The report presents information on parties to conflict credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for acts of rape and other forms of sexual violence. It highlights actions taken and challenges faced by States in conflict and post-conflict situations to protect women, men and children from sexual violence; the implementation of the monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements; the deployment of women’s protection advisers; the engagement undertaken by the United Nations Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict; the efforts of the United Nations system; and recommendations to strengthen efforts to combat this egregious crime.
The report should be read in conjunction with my previous report on the same topic (A/66/657-S/2012/33).Preparation of the report involved consultations with the 13 members of the network of United Nations entities called United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations field missions and country teams, concerned Member States and non-governmental organizations. United Nations peacekeeping and political missions, as well as country teams, were the primary sources of information for the report.
On 2 September 2012, Zainab Hawa Bangura took office as my new Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict, replacing Margot Wallström, and assumed the chairmanship of United Nations Action. Ms. Bangura will focus on consolidating the gains made with regard to the five-point priority agenda established by her predecessor, namely to address impunity, empower war-affected women so that they seek redress and realize their rights, strengthen the political will to comprehensively address sexual violence, harmonize and scale up the international response and enhance understanding of sexual violence as a tactic and consequence of war. As an additional priority, my Special Representative will emphasize the need to foster national ownership, leadership and responsibility in addressing sexual violence.
In 2012, United Nations Action supported the roll-out of scenario-based training for peacekeepers to improve their operational readiness to recognize and react swiftly to sexual violence, and piloted new early-warning indicators to enhance prevention. United Nations Action also supported the implementation of joint Government-United Nations comprehensive strategies to combat sexual violence in relevant settings. United Nations Action has produced a number of tools to assist national capacity-building efforts, including a study on strengthening the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence with non-State armed groups and policy briefs on responding to the psychosocial and mental health needs of survivors of sexual violence in conflict-affected settings. To bolster the United Nations system’s capacity on the ground, United Nations Action has committed catalytic funding for women’s protection advisers in key settings. These activities are supported by voluntary contributions to the United Nations Action multi-partner trust fund, which serves to incentivize cooperation across United Nations system entities on sexual violence in conflict. I urge donors to continue to support this important fund.