Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Costello, to the House. I commend Senator Norris for tabling this motion which, like every other Member of the House, I am glad to support. Undoubtedly, it raises an area of the greatest concern for anybody who is even remotely interested in human rights. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has been mentioned. Senator van Turnhout mentioned United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1820, 1888 and 1889 and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1960, which was passed in 2012, could be added to that as well. Despite those resolutions, as often happens with the United Nations, it does not bring a halt to some of the heinous atrocities that we see committed across the world. We should also remember the important role that women have played in the prevention and resolution of conflicts in various areas across the world, and the United Nations resolution does so. Senators have given examples of this happening. It dates back to the barbaric times of the Middle Ages and pre-Middle Ages to see such atrocities committed against other human beings. In those days, rape was also a weapon of war, as it is now. Senator Norris mentioned that the Japanese soldiers in the Second World War used it extensively in the East but we have seen it subsequently used. The Balkans were mentioned. There it was a weapon not only of war but of ethnic cleansing. It had devastating effects on the communities, particularly on the Muslim community, during the course of the Balkans war. It occurred more recently in the Iraq war. As Senator van Turnhout mentioned, fathers were forced to rape their daughters. One can just imagine, in a family context and in a religious context, the absolute devastation that such violence wreaks on the individuals and on the families involved. It raises serious questions for us as to how do we deal with man's inhumanity to man.

Undoubtedly, the International Criminal Court has done a great deal of good work in bringing perpetrators of genocide in particular to account, and there are current examples of that now in the court in The Hague. We need to focus on this as one of the most serious crimes of war that can be committed and recognise it for what it is. The DRC is a prime example in today's world. To some extent, while it has moved towards democracy, it is quite dysfunctional. In the eastern part of the DRC there is the continuation of violence which dates back over many decades. The five-year conflict, from 1998 to 2003, claimed almost 3 million lives.

The conflicts were characterised by an appalling degree of brutality, large-scale attacks on the civilian population and widespread sexual violence.

A large number of armed groups had based themselves in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo since the genocide in Rwanda of which mention has been made. I was in Rwanda some years ago. We visited a camp adjacent to the border with the Congo and the purpose of that camp, which had been established by President Kagame's government, was to encourage Hutus who had gone and lived in the forests after the genocide in a state of war for maybe two decades to come back in. We meet 300 of those in one of these camps in a very big shed and some of them gave personal testimony to us. They also had the legacy of the Rwandan conflict and the crimes they had committed there. It was all preparatory before they were reintegrated back into civil society.

Women and civil society generally remain gravely exposed in conflict areas. We should express our concern about that and address it through our role in the United Nations to ensure that women who suffer most in conflicts are protected from the devastation of war and particularly the perpetration of sexual violence. Those who perpetrate it should be subject to the most penal sanctions we can impose on them in order that it is an example to others not to pursue the kind of activity in which they have involved themselves.