Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-17-Speech-4-187"
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"en.20080117.20.4-187"2
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"Madam President, with today’s motion on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and on rape and violation as a war crime, we are calling on the European Union and United Nations formally to recognise rape, forced impregnation, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence as a crime against humanity and as a form of torture. We are also calling for pressure to be put on the Congolese Government to bring an end to the situation in which these crimes are being committed with impunity. These measures are needed to improve the appalling situation in which hundreds of thousands of women find themselves.
The violence being suffered by women in the Democratic Republic of Congo is unimaginable. In the province of Kivu more than one third of all women have been subjected to rape, and many have been violated repeatedly over long periods. This has been going on for many years. Most of the perpetrators are soldiers from both sides, members of the Congolese security forces and the police. The UN special rapporteur on violence against women submitted her report last September.
The atrocities being committed by armed troops are of unimaginable brutality and are designed to ensure the complete physical and psychological destruction of women. The trauma of rape is aggravated by the fact that many of the victims then suffer social discrimination and ostracism by their families and communities. This is one of the reasons why only a fraction of the rapes actually committed are being reported.
Echoing what my colleague Mr Fontelles has just said, we therefore want to see the UN mandate extended to include the protection of civilians against sexual violence. Reports of sexual misconduct by members of the UN peacekeeping mission must be looked into in greater depth and those responsible must be brought before a court.
The Goma Conference on peace, security and development opened a few days ago. We urgently call on all the participants to tackle the problem of sexual violence against women and girls, to undertake to bring those responsible before a court and to end the current situation in which these acts can be committed with impunity."@en1
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