Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict

Margaret Hodge Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is a very important point, and I did not include it in my opening remarks, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for that.

What happened on 7 October was a well-documented case of mass sexual violence, in part because the terrorist perpetrators proudly filmed and advertised their crimes. A first responder at kibbutz Be’eri reported finding “piles and piles” of dead women “completely naked” from the waist down, and there have been horrifying reports of sexual mutilation. A survivor of the Supernova music festival massacre, Yoni Saadon, recalled:

“I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her…When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.”

Tragically, Hamas’s use of rape as a weapon of war may not be over yet. Reports indicate that female and male hostages have been sexually assaulted and abused during their incarceration. The fact that sexual violence was committed at multiple locations suggests that it was part of a systematic effort. As the Israeli women’s rights campaigner Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari told the BBC, such a concentration of cases in a relatively short span of time left her in “no doubt” that there was a

“premeditated plan to use sexual violence as a weapon of war”.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my anguish at the fact that the United Nations chose not to recognise that sexual violence took place during the attack on 7 October? Does she further share my horror at the testimony I heard from a woman who was responsible for looking at the bodies when they came into the mortuary? That woman talked about the greyness that confronted her, adding that every now and then there was a bit of shining colour, which was the nail varnish left on the bodies of people who had been sexually abused and then killed.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree with my right hon. Friend on that point, and I heard that testimony too. On that very day, I had bright red nails, unlike the paler-coloured nails that I have today, and the testimony struck me in a profound way.

For months after the 7 October attacks, there was a deafening silence from many organisations and international agencies that are supposedly dedicated to addressing these kinds of crimes. The best that the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls could respond with initially was a very evasive expression of “concern” about

“reports of sexual violence that may have occurred since 7 October, committed by State and non-State actors against Israelis and Palestinians.”

Another organisation, UN Women, which is supposedly

“dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women,”

issued multiple statements following 7 October, none of which addressed Hamas’s sex crimes.

It is deeply concerning that that has been mirrored in the response of some progressive groups, some of which have refused to believe the testimony of eyewitnesses and sought to characterise evidence as “unverified accusations”, even though the evidence of organised and systematic planned attacks in different locations at the same time is clear. The choice made by many to downplay the testimonies of survivors and ignore the evidence about those who were murdered, which we have seen in conflicts around the world, shows just how far we still have to go to change attitudes, even among groups that purport to believe all women.

It is important to note that, although it is particularly stark in relation to the sexual assaults committed on 7 October—I cite that atrocity as it is the most recent example—the denial and dismissal of sexual assault in that conflict is not unique. Many conflicts receive less international attention and reports of sexual violence are often met with an international wall of silence or ineffective expressions of concern. In that regard, it is important to draw attention to the serious allegations of sexual violence reported by interlocutors in Ramallah who raised concerns about the treatment of Palestinians in detention, and in particular the use of sexual harassment and threats of rape during house raids and at checkpoints.

In both 2021 and 2022, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had the world’s highest number of verified cases of sexual violence against children committed by armed forces and armed groups, yet how many of us here today knew that? Well, perhaps more of us knew than is the case in other parts of society. So far, we have clearly failed to achieve the far-reaching change that the world needs. I believe that an important component of that is that sexual violence is seen as an unintended consequence of conflict, instead of a heinous act, in parallel with other war crimes.

Where do we go from here to address the issue? We must centre women’s voices in peace negotiations to help ensure that the victims of sexual violence in conflict receive recognition of the crimes against them, to ensure that crimes of sexual violence are recognised in parallel with other war crimes, and to provide alternative perspectives on the impact that conflict has. We must also hold to account Government initiatives such as the UK women, peace and security national action plan for 2023 to 2027, to ensure that its commitment to put women at the centre of conflict resolution peacebuilding programmes over the next five years is realised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech with intent. She says that we have to hear women’s voices on this; I think we all hold that point in common. But does she agree that, important though it is, it is just not enough for us in Britain to pronounce here, in a debate in Westminster Hall, our horror and our anger and our determination to prevent this from happening? It is absolutely vital that the international institutions—the UN and others—give far greater priority to looking at sexual violence as wars evolve, rather than in retrospect, after a war has come to an end.

[Stella Creasy]

As ever, my right hon. Friend prefigures what I am going to argue, about that mindset change and that cultural change. There is this idea that as long as we stop the war, we stop the violence, and that is enough. It is not enough, and that is what we need to change.

I also want to recognise that this is not just about sexual violence by states. As I get older, I seem to find myself in more and more agreement with my colleague the hon. Member for Strangford—I do not know whether that is accidental or deliberate. He talked about Boko Haram. We have seen in conflicts around the world the use of violence by insurgent organisations. NGOs report that sexual violence often occurs in religious conflict, particularly in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where sexual violence is used to keep minority communities in their place.

Almost 10 years ago, ISIS seized huge swathes of Iraq and Syria and launched a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis in northern Iraq. Some 6,000 women and children were captured. To this day, half of them are still missing. The captive women and children were used for sexual slavery and trafficking. One of the most horrifying points for me about the Yazidi community and how they deal with the trauma is that those women who are still missing, and who are not presumed dead, are considered to have stayed displaced because they are staying with children who have been the product of rape. They face an impossible choice of being separated from their children if they return to freedom.

Boko Haram is a good example of where women have been brutalised by insurgents and then further brutalised by the state, and stigmatised by Government state action. In Nigeria, the governor of Borno state, Kashim Shettima, publicly warned that those women who had become pregnant by Boko Haram fighters could breed a new generation of terrorists, and advocated for those women to be educated not to bring up their children to be terrorists. That is the cycle of blame and shame continuing on.

It is also not just women and girls who are risk; again, the hon. Member for Strangford is absolutely right. There is evidence from the Red Cross that there is sexual and gender-based violence against men and boys, and particularly against LGBTQI people in humanitarian settings, and also against refugees. One of the most depressing studies you will ever read shows that approximately one in five refugees who are displaced women have experienced sexual violence as part of fleeing a conflict zone.

We condemn without reservation those who question whether sexual violence happens. We condemn without reservation any of those people who seek to minimise it or say it is less of an issue in some conflicts than in others. It is an issue in all of them. That matters because over 90% of survivors of sexual violence do not report it to the police or officials in those conflict zones because of their lack of faith that anything will happen. That is understandable when we look at the mixed record of our action, which is where my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) is absolutely right.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda does not reflect the high levels of sexual violence that we know happened in that conflict in its record for action. In contrast, after what happened in the former Yugoslavia, 93 individuals were indicted. Some 44 of those were for crimes involving sexual violence. Of those 44, 29 were convicted, representing a 69% conviction rate.