‘Foreign occupation creates breeding ground for violence against women’

Says greater global efforts needed to address the root cause of conflicts across the world

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Saturday called for greater global efforts to address the root cause of conflicts across the world.

Participating in a debate related to Sexual Violence in Conflict at the UN Security Council, Pakistan's permanent representative in the United Nations (UN) Maleeha Lodhi said, “Foreign occupation creates the breeding ground for violence perpetrated by occupying forces against women.”

Pakistan meets UN goal on female participation in peacekeeping: Maleeha

“Pakistan is deploying a female infantry engagement team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo next month,” Maleeha told the UN council.

She said Pakistan achieved the goal of deployment of 15 per cent female staff officers in peacekeeping missions, thus fulfilling its responsibilities in accordance with the uniformed gender parity strategy and Security Council Resolutions.

"By leaving disputes unaddressed, the council runs the risk of acting selectively and displaying a blind spot for some of the most vulnerable women who suffer disproportionately from violence perpetrated by foreign occupation," Maleeha said.

The Pakistani envoy pointed out that while the UN Security Council was leading global efforts to eliminate the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence, women, especially young girls, continued to carry the main burnt of physical and psychological abuse and trauma.

Maleeha said occupying forces and aggressors were employing sexual violence as a broader strategy for repression, domination and subjugation of defenceless and vulnerable communities.

"From Myanmar to my country's neighbourhood", she said, "the world continues to watch in horror as rape and sexual abuse is employed with impunity as a deliberate means to oppress entire populations and to humiliate and terrorize them".

Maleeha stressed a legal and normative framework to fight conflict-based sexual violence should be supplemented by the international community to fight such crimes.

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"Our fight against impunity for conflict-related sexual violence must continue with greater commitment to hold aggressors to account, and to never allow political or geopolitical interests to constrain or compromise our efforts", she added.

Maleeha called for more meaningful participation of women in the area of peace and security.