On October 31, 2000, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously passed a resolution on Women, Peace and Security. The resolution calls for gender sensitivity in all UN missions and for equal participation for women in conflict and peace negotiations. The resolution reconfirms that women and children are those most adversely affected by armed conflict, including those living as refugees and internally displaced persons. It also calls for special measures to be taken to protect women and girls from gender-based violence and other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict. Women throughout the world have been subjected to gross violations of their human rights during armed conflict.
Women living in Afghanistan are faced with a brutal system of gender apartheid by the Taliban. Thousands of women and girls in Sierra Leone are victims of a systematic assault by rebels who had sought to overthrow the west african nation’s government. Human rights workers compare the atrocities to the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, where women were targeted, captured, ganged raped and forced into sexual servitude and “rape camps”. In August of this year, eleven (11) Bosnian women testified in a U.S. civil trial against Serb leader Radovan Karadzic alleging that he ordered the rape, torture, forced prostitution, kidnapping, and murder of Croats and Muslims. East Timorese women also allege that women in West Timor refugee camps were held as sex slaves.
