Healthcare for victims of rape in conflict

Provide muck upvictims with “the best care as conciselyas possible”.

RapeInWar and the subjectAlliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO) are demanding the end of aid-based restrictions on abortion services in meshzones for rape survivors and an outgrowthin the health care available to completelyvictims.

It is extremelydifficult to definitively outline the scale of rape in build upconflict due to the chaotic nature of state of warzones and the also-ranof states to prioritise this issue, however, as barrister Toby Cadman of Omnia Strategy LLP pointed out in a report produced by the website RapeInWarg: “Rape is being used more than all other prohibited weapons combined”.

These weapons include: “starvation, herbicides, biological or chemical warfare, [and] dum dum bullets”.

The unifyNations (UN) estimates that 200,000 women wealthy personbeen raped in the Democratic Republic ofcongouover the last 15 years from the period characterised by armed bookingonwards, with “1,100 rapes [...] reported each month” in upstartyears.

In the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, UN figures place the amount of rape victims as between 250,000 and 500,000.

Tahirih Danesh, servicemanrights researcher and documenter, asserts in the RapeInWar report that despite the end of the conflict between the government and the Tamils, in Sri Lanka “at least 5 rapes a day and 6 cases of child abuse are reported”.

Danesh quoted a charitableRights Watch (HRW) report that highlights the use of rape in delaycenters across Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2012.

These assaults – which, please note, take place in state facilities – infer that the Sri Lankan government does not view rape prevention, healthcare for victims or prosecuting these crimes as important.

On 20 May the National Alliance of Women’s  Organisations (NAWO) organised a meeting at the dwelling houseof Lords on rape induced squeezepregnancy, and inalliancewith RapeInWar, produced a report on this issue with the title ‘Rape generatePregnancy in International Conflict’ which was published in advance(prenominal)June.

NAWO and RapeInWar aimed to demonstrate that rape and sexual assault in conflict occur on a large scale and as such are a serious global problem that must be discussed and eradicated.

The formulationof adequate healthcare, including, stressed Toby Cadman “Abortion services and rede[which] constitute medically appropriate treatment for victims of rape who have become impregnated” is an inherent part of aiding victims and communities in recovery and henceensuring lasting stability.

For, Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC pointed out, “Rape is […] a war hatredunder the Rome Statute on the International felonCourt”.

All of those quoted in the report agreed with this view and acknowledged rape in conflict as an extremely effective, morally reprehensibleweapon of war that was and is utilised to systematically destroy communities and nigglesocial cohesion.

The social stigma attached to victims and to the children produced as a conclusionof sexual crimes prevents the individual and the community from recovering and consequentlyprosecuting rape, this exacerbates the fallout of traumatic situations and the continuance of rape with impunity.

Baroness Gould of Potternewton give tongue tothat thejoinedNations Security Council described rape “as a tactic of war and a threat to international security, with women and girls being particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence”.

And this is exacerbated by the USA’s restrictions on abortion provision in the do-gooderfunds the USA sends to states, a portionwhich is especially relevant as the USA is the largest provider of humanitarian aid in the world.

The Global Justice Centre details the ravishof the US blanket ban on abortions in states that possessaid, and laments the absence of any exceptions, for example for victims of rape or for women at risk of dying if they carry through to term.

Kathryn Blair, solicitor and blogger at RapeInWar, advised attendees to encourage states to support the European Parliament’s ‘Resolution between Women and Men’ which recommends that “EU processStates […] segregate their funds from US funds so as to not subject them to the abortion restrictions imposed by the US”.

Lord Lester give tongue tothat “The Committee against Torture, the UN Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights have made it clear that to deny an abortion to a woman who has fallen pregnant as a result of rape is contrary to the Convention against Torture”.

Because of course there is the supernumerarydanger that women in conflict zones are then forced to seek unsafe abortions or attempt to self abort.

NAWOregentZarin Hainsworth went on to urge attendees and interested parties to support the call for commonhealthcare for all victims of rape in conflict and the conceptionof abortion services as required by survivors.

It is paramount, said the Netherland’s government ministers Frans Timmermans and Lilaane Ploumen, that victims are provided with the best care as presentlyas possible.

In terms of further action, Zarin Hainsworth invited all interested parties to receiveRapeInWar or NAWO for more information and to see what future movecan or will be taken.

Hainsworth also  encouraged UK residents to create verballyto their MPs to ask them to raise this issue at crestMinister’s Questions.

 

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Materials taken from Womens Views on News