Pakistan has denounced a United Nations (UN) report on conflict-related sexual violence for not including crimes of violence committed in Indian illegally occupied Jammu Kashmir and Israeli-occupied Palestine.
Pakistan ambassador Munir Akram, addressing the UN Security Council, which met to examine implementation of its resolutions on conflict-related sexual violence, said, “There is ample documented evidence that since 1989 Indian occupation forces have used rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war in occupied Kashmir.”
The meeting was convened by the United Kingdom (UK), which holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member Council this month, APP reported.
Opening the debate, Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said that rising militarisation and arms proliferation is bringing conflicts across the globe to a boiling point, with gang rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence being used as tactics of war, torture and terrorism.
Patten presented data from her latest report, published last month, which documented 2,455 UN-verified cases of wartime rape committed during 2022.
Women and girls accounted for 94%, with 6% against men and boys, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) again accounting for the highest number of cases – 701.
Patten also detailed horrors committed in other countries, such as Haiti, Ethiopia and Iraq. Serious allegations of conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan have also surfaced since fighting erupted in April.
Reacting to the report, the Pakistani envoy said, “The credibility of the report is seriously eroded because of what looks like a deliberate decision not to report the crimes of sexual violence being committed in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and in Israeli-occupied Palestine.”
Thousands of women and girls have been raped and gang raped, and subjected to enforced incarceration, torture and abduction, Ambassador Akram said.
In addition, the Pakistani envoy said, thousands of women, girls, boys and men have been detained and tortured, as punishment and humiliation, while entire communities were prevented from their rights to freedom of expression and religion, education and employment.
“And since India’s unilateral and illegal measures of August 5, 2019, conflict-related violence and harassment and humiliation of women and girls in Kashmir has increased significantly,” Ambassador Akram told the Security Council.
“We would, therefore, urge the secretary-general to rectify the report’s omissions and include information on the incidence of sexual violence in foreign-occupied Kashmir and Palestine and list India and Israel amongst those parties perpetrating conflict-related sexual violence in future reports to the Security Council.”
In this regard, he also called for faithful implementation of all Security Council resolutions related to protracted conflicts.
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