Sexual violence 'almost systematic in every conflict today'
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00:00 Now, the UN Security Council is due to meet later today to discuss sexual violence in
00:03 conflict zones.
00:05 Ahead of that meeting, the Secretary General has released a report.
00:09 Sexual violence was included as a tactic of war in countries including Afghanistan, the
00:13 Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, as well as the state of
00:17 Palestine.
00:18 For more on this story, we can bring in Céline Bardet, lawyer and founder of the NGO We Are
00:23 Not Weapons of War.
00:25 Good afternoon.
00:26 Thank you very much for joining us here on France 24.
00:28 If you could just talk us through how prevalent sexual violence is as a weapon of war.
00:33 Well, I think it's, you know, one of the problem is that we don't have any global study on
00:38 the scope of conflict related sexual violence and we do need it.
00:43 And we have been asking my NGO to conduct this study.
00:46 So we need resources for that.
00:48 But it's very prevalent and we see with this new report that it's, you know, becoming more
00:54 and more and, you know, almost systematic in every conflict today.
00:58 And what are you expecting to come out of this meeting at the UN Security Council?
01:04 Well I think that now conflict related sexual violence is high on the topic of the UN.
01:11 So we do expect from the Security Council, for example, to put more element of sexual
01:18 violence in sanctions because this is something that they can do.
01:22 And we need really to find answers because it's, you know, more and more prevalent and
01:27 we need to find really solution to stop this because it's used by states, by militia, by
01:33 terrorist group, by armed group.
01:35 IT this year is added on the report.
01:38 So it shows how much, you know, it is extremely systematic tool used by lots of different
01:45 factions.
01:46 So different factions are using it.
01:47 You mentioned that how Haiti has been added to the list.
01:50 Firstly, how do you go about investigating such crimes which I assume involve men too
01:57 as well as minors?
01:59 Yeah, exactly.
02:00 Of course it involves men.
02:02 Let's not forget about that.
02:04 It involves minors.
02:05 It's also we see sexual violence on migration route.
02:08 You know, we were talking about that in your previous reportage and we need to document
02:16 it and that's very important and we need to act very quickly.
02:19 So we need to, we are trying to set up a system, a model in my NGO so we can intervene very
02:24 quickly and we need more, you know, justice on that.
02:29 But above, I mean, beside all of that, we need to hear the voice of survivor and provide
02:34 them with the, you know, response they need in terms of medical, psychological support.
02:40 Because let's not forget, for example, for girls also that it has trauma, long trauma,
02:46 it impacts on communities.
02:48 So it has huge effects, long effects and this is why this is so important to work on that
02:53 and really to work on it.
02:55 I mean, stop talking about it.
02:56 We need to do something.
02:57 Céline Barthé, we're going to have to leave it there.
03:00 Thank you very much for joining us on the program today.