Since the 31st. October 2000, they are officially entitled to protection: UN Resolution 1325 calls on warring parties to protect the rights of women. But today, women want more than just to be recognized as victims: they want to have a say.
Syria, Rwanda, Bosnia, South Sudan: Time and again, women are raped en masse in war – to weaken political opponents, hurt religious groups or simply to humiliate them. In order to be able to respond appropriately to sexualized war crimes, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution 15 years ago, on 31 December 2009, to establish a new UN Human Rights Council. October 2000, the resolution 1325. In it, for the first time, parties to the conflict were called upon to protect the rights of women.
"The most important success of the resolution was that it was passed," says Karin Nordmeyer. Nordmeyer is honorary chairwoman of the German section of the UN Women organization, which is based in Bonn. The resolution should help to avoid crimes like those committed during the Bosnian war: Mostly Serb or Bosnian Serb soldiers raped tens of thousands of mostly Muslim Bosnian women.
Legal prosecution of perpetrators made possible
The realization that women need different protection than men has become clear and a majority view. Since then, sexualized violence in wartime and post-war times can be legally punished, Nordmeyer adds. One part of the resolution stipulates that rape can be prosecuted as a war crime; the other, that women should have an equal say in peace negotiations, conflict mediation and reconstruction.
"In the resolution are all the important demands, but they are not implemented," criticizes Monika Hauser, executive director of Medica Mondiale. Since the early 1990s, the gynecologist has been working with partner organizations to help traumatized women in countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Only six percent of total UN aid money in 2012-2013 was spent on women's ies, she laments.
Out of the victim role
Hauser bases her criticism on an expert report prepared for the UN Security Council. For peace efforts to succeed, Hauser says, it is essential to use and recognize women as actors. "If we do not involve women in the peace processes, women's interests simply do not come forward."Although many women liberated themselves from victimhood, founded organizations to help other women, the public perceives them only through a "keyhole view of their horrific experiences". "It is important to me that in this country, too, it is finally noticed that women in particular have developed into a particularly courageous part of civil society in recent decades," she writes in a letter to the editor.
One example is Bakira Hasecic. The Muslim Bosnian was herself raped by Serbian soldiers. Since 2003, when she founded the organization "Women – Victims of War," she has been recording testimonies of raped women and transmitting them to the prosecutor's office in Bosnia-Herzegovina. These reports were among other things also the legal templates for the war crimes tribunals in The Hague.
Aming an equal role
Hasecic was once a victim – today she is an actor, stresses Jasmina Prpic. The founder and chairwoman of the German organization "Women Lawyers without Borders" is herself from Bosnia and Herzegovina. "The women there don't want to maintain their 'victim' status, but want to be involved," explains the lawyer. The women who were raped back then are now judges, lawyers and doctors, and are sitting in high positions. "They want and are above all capable of aming an equal role in the Bosnian post-war society."
Medica Mondiale founder Hauser sees an important responsibility in the UN itself. "Democratization processes must run in its structures, which means introducing a binding women's quota and involving women in decision-making processes," she demands. "If the UN itself does not take to heart what it prescribes, it is not credible."
Genital mutilation as an act of violence
On the occasion of the Day of Action, the Catholic mission organization missio Munich is calling for a stronger fight against the cruel tradition of female circumcision in particular. The ritual is still widespread in many regions of Africa, regardless of people's religion, says missio President Wolfgang Huber.
In the process, they say, the dignity of girls and women is being disregarded in a particularly brutal way. For this reason, missio is also campaigning against female genital mutilation in various projects, including in Tanzania in Africa.
"We have to use our influence and do everything we can to make this ritual a thing of the past soon," Huber stresses. It is crucial, she says, that people's consciousness changes. In addition, he said, the goal is to give affected young women a new and dignified perspective.
But violence against women is not a phenomenon of other, distant countries: Scientific studies show that in Germany, too, one in four women experiences physical and/or sexual violence from a partner at least once in her life.