UN report urges Liberia to act on rape
MONROVIA / GENEVA (14 October 2016) - A UN report
released today documents the high incidence of rape in Liberia as well as the
widespread impunity enjoyed by perpetrators.
The report, released by the United Nations Mission in
Liberia (UNMIL) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR), is based on information gathered by UN human rights officers between
January 2015 and March 2016. It indicates a very high number of rapes reported
in all the 15 counties across the country, with 803 cases in 2015. “Rape is the
second most commonly reported serious crime in Liberia,” according to the
report.
Liberia’s high incidence of rape is in part a legacy of
its 14-year civil conflict, from which the country is still rebuilding, says
the report. According to the World Health Organization, “between 61.4 and 77.4
per cent of women and girls in Liberia were raped during the war.” Despite
this, there has been no criminal accountability for perpetrators of war crimes
in Liberia, including perpetrators of wartime sexual violence.
Impunity also prevails for recent rapes, with only two
per cent of rapes and Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) cases reported
last year resulting in a conviction in court.
Rape victims do not achieve justice due to multiple
challenges, including institutional weaknesses, corruption, lack of due
diligence by government as well as logistical and financial constraints. “These
combined factors have led to a widespread culture of impunity for SGBV,
particularly for rape, putting women and children at continued serious risk of
sexual violence,” says the report.
Other barriers to victims reporting rape include undue
influence by traditional actors, cultural and patriarchal attitudes, as well as
gender stereotyping. A previous UN report published in December 2015, had
already highlighted the widespread impunity for SGBV crimes in the context of
Liberian traditional and cultural practices.**
Social pressure to informally settle cases out of court
is also a major obstacle to justice. “In the Liberian context, victims face
challenges at every step of the process if they attempt to hold their
assailants criminally accountable,” says the report.
The vast majority of perpetrators of rape in Liberia are
males over the age of 18 who are known to the victim. Most perpetrators are
community members, and in some cases close relatives to the victim. “The shame
of accusing a community or family member of rape prevented most victims from
reporting the case,” the report notes.
The report also says that close to 80 per cent of rape
victims documented by the UN in Liberia in 2015 were under the age of 18,
including at least five cases of girls under the age of five being raped.
However, children are not necessarily disproportionately targeted, according to
the report: “Child rape reports may be higher because they shock the conscience
and are not preempted by the generally discriminatory attitudes towards women
survivors of rape.”
Liberia is party to a number of international human
rights treaties and instruments, under which it has the obligation to fight
rape and gender-based violence. According to the report, the Liberian
government’s inability, despite efforts made, to ensure criminal accountability
for perpetrators of rape shows “that Liberia is not in compliance with its
human rights obligations.”
The report provides a number of recommendations to the
Government, as well as other national and international stakeholders and the
United Nations, to urgently combat the scourge of rape. These include enhancing
the fight against impunity through additional resources and capacities,
including to the sex crimes prosecutor’s office, developing forensic
investigation, harmonizing rape provisions in the penal code and enacting the
Domestic Violence Act, which would make spousal rape a criminal offence.
The report also recommends that the Government implements
recommendations previously made by UN human rights mechanisms and encourages it
to continue to seek technical assistance from international partners.
ENDS
*The full report can be found here:
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LR/SGBV_ReportLiberia_October2016.docx
The report was prepared by the Human Rights and Protection
Service of the UN Mission in Liberia whose mission is “to promote, protect, and
monitor human rights in Liberia, with special attention to violations and
abuses committed against women and children.”
**To access the UNMIL/OHCHR report on human rights and
harmful traditional practices in Liberia, please go to:
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LR/HarmfulTraditionalPracticesLiberia.pdf
For more information and media requests, please contact:
- In Monrovia: Napoleon Viban (++231 880792768 / Viban@un.org)
- In Geneva: Rupert Colville (+41 22 917 9767 /
rcolville@ohchr.org) or Cécile Pouilly (+41 22 917 9310 / cpouilly@ohchr.org)
or Ravina Shamdasani (+41 22 917 9169 / rshamdasani@ohchr.org ) or Liz
Throssell ( +41 22 917 9466 /
ethrossell@ohchr.org )
For your news websites and social media:
Multimedia
content & key messages relating to our news releases are available on UN
Human Rights social media channels, listed below. Please tag us using the
proper handles:
Twitter: @UNHumanRights
Facebook: unitednationshumanrights
Instagram: unitednationshumanrights
Google+: unitednationshumanrights
Youtube: unohchr
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar