EU Statement – United Nations Security Council: Arria Formula meeting on the Use of Sanctions in Addressing Sexual Violence in Conflict

I would like to thank the Netherlands, Côte d'Ivoire, France and Peru for convening this meeting today and I extend our gratitude to the panelists for their striking presentations.

Protecting women and girls from sexual violence is crucial to the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Sexual and Gender-Based Violence is not only a violation of Human Rights but a Crime. It is a threat to international peace and security, as stated in UNSCR 1820 (2008), and often causes long-term trauma, resentment and grievances in communities.

Justice and accountability are key to ensuring long lasting peace. It is unacceptable that perpetrators of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes, both from states or non-state armed groups, continue to live in impunity. Accountability for these crimes does not only bring justice to victims but also deter the future occurrence of Sexual Crimes.

We welcome the proposals we have heard today not only of judicial measures to hold perpetrators to account, but also of virulent sanctioning of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. Sanctions tools offer significant, yet largely unexploited, potential to advance women’s and men's protection from sexual violence in conflict. The UN Security Council has shown the way by specifically referring to sexual violence as constituting an abuse or violation of human rights in designation criteria, including for instance as regards the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali, while in the regimes on the Central African Republic and South Sudan stand-alone criteria against perpetrators have been inserted. At the EU level, various EU autonomous measures contain listing criteria related to human rights violations, which also make it possible to list persons for sexual violence.

It is now time to move from a case by case approach to a systematic and innovative response. In this regard, we fully subscribe to the recommendation by the Secretary-General in his report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence that the Security Council should take concrete steps to include sexual violence as part of the designation criteria for sanctions;  ensure that dedicated expertise on gender and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence informs the work of sanctions committees and monitoring entities; and continue to invite the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict to share information with sanctions committees. We also note the importance of involving Civil Society actors in this discussion.

We are very encouraged by today's event and look to the Security Council for decisive action in our shared fight against sexual violence in conflict.