Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 2014 was marked by harrowing accounts of rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage being used by extremists including the Islamic State group and Boko Haram.
In a report released Monday, the U.N. chief expressed âœgrave concernâ over sexual violence perpetrated by armed groups, including those promoting extremist ideologies in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Libya and Yemen.
âœThe confluence of crises wrought by violent extremism has revealed a shocking trend of sexual violence employed as a tactic of terror by radical groups,â Ban said.
The secretary-general said efforts âœto degrade or destroyâ the Islamic State group, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, Ansar Dine and al-Qaida affiliates âœare an essential part of the fight against conflict-related sexual violence.â
The report focuses on 19 countries engulfed in conflict or trying to recover from fighting where sexual violence including rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and forced pregnancy occurs, mainly against women and girls but also against boys and men. It lists 45 groups in Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Congo, Iraq, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria as well as Boko Haram in Nigeria that are âœcredibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rapeâ in conflict â” 13 of them for the first time.
The report said âœone of the most alarming episodes of 2014â was the April 14 abduction of 276 secondary students by Boko Haram from a school in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok.
Forced marriage, enslavement and the â™saleâ™ of kidnapped women and girls are central to Boko Haramâ™s modus operandi and ideology
Issued a day before the first anniversary of the girlsâ™ abduction, the report said Boko Haram often forces women and girls it seizes into marriages that entail repeated rapes.
âœForced marriage, enslavement and the â™saleâ™ of kidnapped women and girls are central to Boko Haramâ™s modus operandi and ideology,â it said. âœAbducted girls who refuse marriage or sexual contact within marriage have faced violence and death threats.â
Since mid-2014, the report said, âœthere has been a significant increase in the number of reported cases of sexual violence perpetrated by terrorist groups,â especially the Islamic State group which âœuses sexual violence to spread terror, persecute ethnic and religious minorities and suppress communities that oppose its ideology.â
The report singled out that groupâ™s abduction of hundreds of Yazidi women and girls in Iraq, some of whom were taken into Syria and âœsoldâ in markets to be used as sex slaves. It said âœthree cases of forced abortion perpetrated because of the ethnicity of the victim were documented by the governmentâ of Iraq.
In Colombia, the report said, âœwomen working with displaced communities and calling for land restitution have been targeted by armed groups and subjected to repeated sexual assault.â In the Central African Republic, the report said 2,527 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were documented in 2014, adding that âœall parties have used sexual violence to subjugate and humiliate opponents.â
In Sudanâ™s western Darfur region, it said the number of displaced civilians has increased over the past year and so have reports of sexual violence. And in South Sudan, it said sexual violence remains prevalent â” including gang rape, castration, forced nudity and forced abortion â” which is âœexacerbated by impunity and a militarized society in which gender inequality is pronounced.â
On a positive note, the report said Congoâ™s government took âœunprecedented stepsâ including prosecuting high-ranking officers for sexual violence and paying reparations to survivors. But at the same time it said 2014 saw a resurgence of violence by armed groups including an increase in rape.