Zainab Bangura - UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence In Conflict HARDtalk

election is on Saturday. Welcome. For too long, horse have

been waged on the bodies of women. That unflinching summary of a

horrible truth come from my guest today, Zainab Bangura, the UN

special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Over the past

two decades, the list of war-torn countries were women and children

have been subjected to systematic rape and sexual abuse has grown

shamefully long, from Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo,

to Syria today. Can the most Zainab Bangura, welcome. Thank you.

You lead the international effort to try to eliminate the sexual

violence as a weapon of war. I wonder whether your own background,

coming from Sierra Leone, sunk into violence for so many years, does

that give you a coastal state in this? Thank you. During the

difficult times in the conflict in Sierra Leone, I created an

organisation. Fully documented atrocities of the war. I work with

his special courts. I wrote the special Reports a forced marriage

and testified as an expert witness. A work -- as a human rights

activist, I saw the atrocities to the girls and women, and win in two

police stations and hospitals. I witnessed it first hand. I felt it

and cried. I can tell their story in the special courts. The back

then, did you feel a sense of helplessness in the face of the

scale of the problem? The UN thinks 60,000 women were raped during the

decade of Sierra Leone's civil strife. The experience I went

through his very difficult to tell, especially when I have to deal with

my youngest victim, three years old. meeting girls, who were abandoned

by parents, I met a young lady who lost her memory. She does not know

who she is, where she comes from, nothing. The pressure was so much

for her. The psychological impact of what happened to her... It

blocked her entire memory. I met someone who had seven children from

seven people. She had to survive with seven children. The story

still haunts me as I go to Somalia or, Congo. I want to talk about

some of the other contemporary situations that you are dealing

with today. On this broad question, given the scale of the sexual

violence, the rape as a weapon of war problem, should we see it as

something that is inescapably part of warfare? Frankly, if one looks

back at conflicts millennia and sentries ago, this was written

about, it was a problem. Rape and violence against women was used as

a weapon of war. It is the longest crime. I went to the Pentagon about

two weeks ago. I was talking to do pity assistance. -- deputy. He

poured forward an act by a Abraham Lincoln, where they mention sexual

violence and the elections that should be taken by American forces

to ensure that they are managed. It is a result of the Security Council

resolution. In 2000, it actually became an international criminal

crime. That is interesting. There has been a couple of specific UN

Security Council resolutions defining rape and sexual violence

as specific elements of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which

can be taken to the international courts, including the ICC in The

Hague. But the question is this, is her that really going to make a

difference? I think it will send a message very clearly. What the ICC

is doing, and the resolutions the security council has passed, they

have created a global legal framework. We are actually engaging

countries constructively. We have come to realise this is not just a

do in issue. It actually belongs to member-state countries. The

countries where these crimes are committed have the legal, moral,

responsibilities to their citizens. They have that but it means nothing

in so many cases. You mentioned the Democratic Republic of Congo for

you spent the last few months. We still see today 40 or so women and

children being raped in eastern DRC every single day. Despite all of

the laws of the Security Council resolutions you have just talked

about. Because he resolution is as good as when they are implemented.

You cannot leave them on the decks of the Security Council. He has

defied away when national governments will take the

leadership, ownership and responsibility. I was able to come

out to the D R C with agreements. We spelled out specifically what we

would do. There is a law in the Beyonce. We have tried to get a

strategy. -- Congo. We are engaging them. A piece of paper signed by

government officials in Congo, when they and institutions, the army in

police and baby the judiciary are actually a part of the problem, not

the solution. He challenge is, if you do not work with them, you

cannot and it. You have to hold them accountable and responsible,

and a sure the police -- but how do you hold them accountable? By

making them agree that it is a crime. In the Ivory Coast, it is a

crime. You have to make sure the country has the legal framework to

criminalise it. Once you can do that, you can work with the police.

We went to Columbia. So much crime has be committed during the 50

Years War in Colombia. The -- our experts had to work with the

judiciary to bring it off the ladder to create a framework to

criminalise it, change the penal code and train people. After the

war, we were trying to make sure that people who committed a crime

were prosecuted. We discovered all the judges who were trained were

trained in the '60s. At the time, human rights was not part of the

curriculum. They do not know how to prosecute the cases. You have to

work with them to understand that this is a crime. In Sierra Leone,

we have judges who are trade. We passed the sex offenders Act. The

outright work with the international government in that

way. You are relatively optimistic in some countries that is bearing

fruit. You have also done something very striking. Your predecessor in

this post, you have actually gone out there and who have talked to

some of the militia groups, the soldiers and rebels who have been

responsible for some of these terrible crimes. I just wonder,

when you look these people in the eye, and do talk to them about what

they have done, what is your feeling about them? How to change

them. They are in the government forces. We need to make them

realise that this is a crime. We have to berate to them the effects,

the damage caused. Sexual violence is not a crime against a woman a

crime against a family, against a community, a crime against a

society. In Somalia, I make a man who had to that of his daughters

raped. He was looking for justice. This old man that was almost in

tears. Two of his daughters. That is what it is all about. I had to

address this plan. Imagine those women were your daughters. I know

how much you value your mother's. In the African environment, and

mother is so important. She can either decide the girlfriend or why

he will have. Imagine your mother being raped. How would you fuel?

Imagine for yourself as the mother even of a baby, let alone a young

girl who has been raped, and terribly abused, coming face to

face with a perpetrator as you have done. I want to get a sense of what

you think drives these perpetrators? When I came from the

Congo, IT visited a local militia. It was led by somebody called

Morgan. In that village, last year, they read 11 babies between the

ages of six months took off months. 59 babies between the ages of one

year. -- one year to three years. We were extremely shocked and

wanted to find out what it is that drives people to do this thing. We

came to the conclusion that it is part of the explanation we have a

UN. What other way can you act? It is not accidental, it is

premeditated and planned. Because the conflict that happens in Africa

is complicated between communities, fighting for resources, trying to

take power, so the best thing you can do is go after the vulnerable

group off the opposition. So people go after the women and children who

cannot protect themselves. They produce the next generation. Sexual

violence is so dehumanising. It is so degrading. People who go through

the trauma, it takes years for them to recover. That is what they do.

They try to break the human spirit of younger people and the community.

The fathers, husbands, brothers. is a difficult question for you.

You mentioned the host of countries from your own Sierra Leone to

Colombia to obviously the Congo. Afghanistan. Afghanistan and

Somalia. So many. You have a staff that barely get into double figures.

You travel the world and spread the message that something has to be

done. Yet, the resources you can command frankly are pitiful.

good thing about this is a couple of things. One, the fact that I am

chair of the UN action against sexual violence, which brings

together 14 UN entities. I chair that. They are part and parcel of

the network of UN agencies that are working to address the problem,

from UNICEF to other organisations. All of them. Sorry to interrupt but

how much credibility does the UN have on the ground but the most

visible face of the UN in Congo is UN peacekeepers. We both know that

over years, hundreds, frankly, hundreds of those UN soldiers have

been found guilty of their own sexual exploitative crimes against

local people. How much credibility does the UN on the ground we have?

We have to differentiate between UN civilian, the agencies like UNICEF,

but like a understand that. thinking from the perspective of a

local person. You are there to tell them the UN will be there for them,

to protect them, offer them haven, bring the perpetrators to justice.

Yet, a different branch of the UN wearing this famous helmet over

many years have been found wanting in terms of their own commitment.

If we go back to the UN's and peacekeeping, I'm sure you'll agree

with me in terms of sexual and exploitation, which is not my

career. It is something. With differently. They have done a lot

to address the issue of ex -- sexual exploitation. The Secretary

General is very concerned about this issue of sexual exploitation

and he is taking very strong action. I can assure you that for now, the

incident of sexual exploitation has reduced. I was in Liberia, and I

remember. I was in the field. At the time, the incident was larger.

The engagement between the countries and training given to

troops before deployed, all of that ice actually helped to reduce the

issue of sexual is potation considerably on the ground. They

did have incidents. Access -- action has been taken. The

Secretary General is engaging member states. People who commit

these will be able to make sure Exterior, you spent some time in

Africa. In Syria, according to UN reports and human rights are

reports, women are suffering terribly from yew bows of sexual

abuse and systematic rape. The question is simple. Giving the

context, what is happening in Syria today, how on earth can you expect

to deliver either protection to The challenge we haven't with Syria

is we do not have accessibility. -- that we have with Syria. The

government I have spoken to. We are working with governments in

neighbouring countries. We're very concerned about the level of sexual

violence taking place. We do not have numbers for two reasons - we

have problems with people accessing services. Secondly, there is the

problem of on a killing. The pride and their daughter, their sister,

is killed... Kill the victim. Kill the victim in Syria? It is a

problem we need to address. We need to visit the camps, to go to Jordan,

Lebanon and to find or the possibility of going into Syria. We

talk about the refugees in the cams. Nobody has been able to tell us

what is happening in there -- with those women. Who is raping them,

the numbers. We do not have any information inside Syria so we are

trying to work as much information. It is another disturbing story and

his entire conversation so far has been about states that are failing

or have been badly broken by internal strife. I want to switch

the conversation a little bit. I am aware that I can tap into your

experience not just as a UN person but as somebody who has been a

leader in your own country, Sierra Leone. It went through 11 years of

terrible civil war any in 2002. He then became a minister - Foreign

Minister, health minister. In the end, you can talk about the UN and

outside help and involvement that isn't it the truth that a broken

Guam Sierra Leone can only really be fixed from within? To some

extent. Because I can tell you that when the war ended or almost at the

end of the war, one of the things we had lost in Sierra Leone and we

just have seen in Somali, is institutional memory. You cannot

reinstate a country in a state in which it was before the conflict

because when you go back to look, it is that very state that caused

the conflict. Celia had many use of a dictatorship. Our country it was

destroyed. -- Shearer Leeanne. There is not a function in

Parliament. Civil society does not have a voice, the opposition has no

opposition. You need to go back to the drawing board. Which is while

we were very happy with the issue as a poor widow from the UK. We had

the British inspector-general of police because there is no-one in

the police to could remember the Minister of politicians cannot

order to arrest some of the opposition who said something

against all the media who said something against them. He brings

the prisoner ankles of President and asks him what shall I do? --

and asks the President. I see the institutional problems but I am

wanting to focus on something in particular - how do you get over

the gender inequality in a country where it is a male-dominated

society. You were, for example health minister but if I look at

the stats on key measures, healthcare for mothers, infant

mortality rates, goals in education, frankly, Sierra Leone in the year

since the end of the war, has not really delivered in the way that

you must have hoped and I wonder why that is? Because just like any

other institution, the entire structure has been destroyed There

are very systematic problems they need to address. For example, in

the case of Sierra Leone, we had 1,900 health facilities and so we

do not have enough infrastructure to attend to the population. During

complex, the population tends to get much younger to because people

produce more children. Secondly, you do not have the human resources.

It takes that used to train a doctor. We have about three or

colleges, four physicians, one paediatrician, the medical staff

are in need... A lot of the staff in Sierra Lianne had let. Even if

you are building infrastructure, you do not have the staff. The

distribution of drug is a second issue. We have to work with UNICEF

now, I signed an agreement, they will take over the issue. But, with

respect, you are describing again institutional problems. I'm

interested in the gender issue. And I tell you why. The track it

strikes me there is one particular single issue which you could have

addressed as health minister and you did not - female genital

mutilation which is very widespread in Sierra Leone. 90% of women have

under Gahan this particular procedure. You, in a very frank

interview in 2005, described psychological effect - the real

damaging effect it had on you but as health minister you do not

address it. It comes under social welfare. It is not a gender issue.

There you are one of the most powerful women in the country...

(UNKNOWN SPEAKER), I was a campaigner. -- no. I campaigned

against genital mutilation. I was stunned in some communities. Stein?

Yes, they threw me out. It is the men themselves. Now, things have

changed. The reality now, our generation do not send their

children for the operation. I can tell you that. The figures it

seemed to suggest they do. It is true. Because of your UN

responsibility, you are not in politics in your country right now

but you are still seen as one of the most influential women in their

country. Is your message to your country they need to address that

one particular issue - female genital mutilation - to send a

signal about the rebalancing of the gender issue in your country, to

give a voice to women? It is much more than that. The African Union

has a protocol, which most countries have signed, and Sierra

Leone is a member of the African Union. We have women's groups and

the rug up specific countries there are committed not to be involved in

the issue of female genital mutilation. It is something that

when we started, you could not talk about it on the radio. Today,

people are talking about it. And councillor, who has just lost a

seat in the last election, she is a support. We agree and encourage

people what the government has done is they cannot force children. The

present President broke all the women and gave a commitment that

they cannot force children against their will. I have to ask you this

before we finish. When you finish at the UN, and you want to go back

home and continue this work in change your country and

particularly changing the role of women? I want to go to my village.

That is where I want to stay. That is the only way I can change it. I

have OP boys on the political level, I need to live with the people and

make them understand. -- I have a voice on the political level. They