Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Claire Denman

Thank you, Madame President,

CSW welcomes this report and thanks the Special Rapporteur for her continued work.

The report on rape as a grave, systematic and widespread human rights violation is particularly sobering given the current situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The campaign of sexual violence targeting women and girls in the region has been described by the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict as being of “a level of cruelty beyond comprehension”.

Reports continue to emerge from Tigray of wives being raped in front of their husbands; mothers raped in front of their children and vice versa; family members forced to choose between raping female relatives or death, and of women themselves being forced to choose between rape or death.

While the total number of victims is currently unknown, one report by the European External Programme with Africa (EEPA) asserts that 10,000 would be a “conservative estimate.”

We fully concur with the Rapporteur’s assertion that there should be no statute of limitation for initiating legal proceedings on rape, whether committed during conflict or in peacetime.

We therefore call on this council to ensure that all those responsible for these and other egregious human rights violations are held to account.

For the sake of women and girls in Tigray, the Human Rights Council works with the Security Council, the African Union and others not only to bring these atrocities to a definitive end, but also to combat impunity by bringing perpetrators to justice.

Thank you.