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VOA \u2014 NEW YORK – Actor and activist Angelina Jolie urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to fulfill its promise to hold to account perpetrators of sexual violence against children in conflict settings.<\/p>\n\u201cI have met child survivors of sexual violence \u2013 and domestic violence and trauma and abuse \u2013 everywhere,\u201d Jolie said of her 20 years working with the U.N. refugee agency. \u201cThere is no continent untouched by these crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She addressed a council session reflecting on the issue, one year after adoption of Resolution 2467, which strengthened prevention through justice and accountability mechanisms, empowered the council to impose sanctions on perpetrators, and opened the way for victims to seek reparations.<\/p>\n
Jolie gave the example of Yazidi children she had met in northern Iraq. Thousands of their mothers and female relatives have been abducted, enslaved and abused since 2014 by fighters with the Islamic State group. Many are still in captivity.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the children witnessed the murder of their relatives, and the rape of their mothers,\u201d she told the council in a virtual meeting. \u201cOne doctor who has provided medical care for hundreds of Yazidi women and girls\u00a0said that almost every girl she had treated between the ages of 9 and 17 had been raped or subjected to other sexual violence. In some cases, victims were girls under the age of 9.\u201d<\/p>\n
Specialized care needed<\/strong><\/p>\n She said the children experience post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, flashbacks and nightmares, yet these \u201cinvisible victims\u201d are particularly overlooked when it comes to support services.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat few services there are have been largely focused on women survivors \u2013 who have immense trauma and unmet needs of their own,\u201d Jolie said. \u201cThe reality is that no one is getting the care they need. But there is a specific lack of dedicated care for children.\u201d<\/p>\n Jolie said she has seen these problems in every conflict setting she has visited and urged the international community to step up its funding to address the needs of all survivors.<\/p>\n Khin Ohmar, a peace activist from Myanmar, spoke on behalf of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. She said in her country, the military has long used rape as a weapon against ethnic communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe horrific accounts of Rohingya women during the 2016 and 2017 so-called \u2018clearance operations\u2019 remain urgent, shocking and unique in their ferocity,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are also representative of the military\u2019s pattern of using gender-based violence in their campaigns against other ethnic communities, including the Kachin, Shan, Ta\u2019ang and Rakhine.\u201d<\/p>\n She said grave international crimes continue to be committed in Myanmar, and she urged the council to refer the file to the International Criminal Court, as domestic accountability is not possible.<\/p>\n Sexual violence a tactic of war<\/strong><\/p>\n The U.N. secretary-general\u2019s envoy on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, said sexual violence is a tactic of war and a tool of political repression, used to dehumanize, destabilize and forcibly displace populations. It includes rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization and forced marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a crime that shreds the very fabric that binds communities together, leaving social cohesion and safety nets threadbare,\u201d Patten told the council.<\/p>\n She said the U.N. documented nearly 3,000 cases last year of conflict-related sexual violence but noted it is a crime that is underreported because of fear of reprisals and stigmatization. Nearly 90% of attacks targeted women and girls; 848 were on children. Hundreds of cases also targeted men, boys and LGBTQI persons.<\/p>\n She noted that many victims are still seeking justice and support years later.<\/p>\n \u201cIn post-conflict contexts, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, survivors of sexual violence are still fighting to realize their rights and status as legitimate victims of war, in order to access reparations and redress,\u201d Patten said.<\/p>\n She urged the council to enforce its resolution and show perpetrators that there are consequences for violating it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VOA \u2014 NEW YORK – Actor and activist Angelina Jolie urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to fulfill its promise to hold to account perpetrators of sexual violence against children in conflict settings. \u201cI have met child survivors of sexual violence \u2013 and domestic violence and trauma and abuse \u2013 everywhere,\u201d Jolie said of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}