UNICEF welcomes the adoption by the United Nations Security Council of a resolution calling for increased protection from sexual violence for women and children in conflict countries.  Sexual violence is a horrific violation of human rights and a despicable weapon of war used against women and children. The resolution sets in place mechanisms that should contribute to ending impunity, while also calling for increased attention towards building international and national capacity to provide the full range of services that survivors of sexual violence need.

Resolution 1888 is an important step, adding additional impetus to international efforts to stamp out sexual violence, ensuring that sexual violence is taken into account in United Nations-sponsored peace negotiations, and strengthening accountability for violations through the new reporting mechanism it establishes.  More specifically, operative paragraph 26 calls for a proposal within three months on the development of a monitoring and reporting mechanism, and it also calls for a timely gaps analysis of the UN system. 

UNICEF will engage a consultant for a period of 4 months to assist the UN Action network to finalize a set of indicators to gage programmatic response to sexual violence, and to develop and negotiate proposals for the Secretary General to establish a proposal for a monitoring and reporting mechanism that can be used at country level to ensure that information on the indicators is collected, analyzed and reported upon.

This work will be undertaken in full collaboration with the UN Action network, and in close consultation with the Gender-based Violence (GBV) Area of Responsibility (AoR) Working Group. The proposed mechanism for monitoring and reporting in relation to Resolution 1888 is likely to build upon the MRM mechanism developed for Resolutions 1612/1882 at country level, thus, the consultant’s work will include an in-depth reflection on how a monitoring and reporting mechanism for Resolution 1888 can be linked to Resolutions 1612/1882.   This will also include reflection on how the issue of sexual violence can be best integrated into the action plans called for in Resolutions 1612/1882.

Project results

UNICEF hosted a series of consultations to collect information on lessons learned, challenges and the development of solutions for improved monitoring and reporting on sexual violence in conflict as well as on how to measure or assess the UN’s response to sexual violence in conflict.  The first consultation was held in September 2009 right after SCR 1888 became a reality.  The next consultation was held November 2009 with NGO partners, the third consultation was held with UN actors in late November 2009, and the last consultation was held in December 2009 with UN Action focal points.

In addition, UNICEF shared the draft proposal and the set of benchmarks with several UNICEF country offices and inter-agency UN and NGO partners for their consideration and feedback.  All feedback has been used to revise and strengthen the proposal and benchmarks.

All of the inter-agency consultations helped build a proposal and a set of benchmarks that are representative of the lessons learned at the field level in terms of engaging in monitoring and reporting on sexual violence in conflict.  The NGO consultations helped to infuse the proposal and to develop the Terms of Reference for the real-time assessments in a way that will promote the objective review of the UN’s response to sexual violence in conflict.