MaximsNewsNetwork: HILLARY CLINTON on SEXUAL VIOLENCE & WOMEN, HIV, AIDS

MaximsNewsNetwork: 25 September 2009 - UNTV: United Nations: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with UN partners launch a new initiative in the fight against sexual violence against girls, a scourge which affects 150 million victims in a given year and contributes to the spread of HIV and AIDS.

At a breakfast meeting at UN headquarters co-sponsored by the Netherlands and Brazil, Clinton said that preventing the exploitation and marginalization of girls was no longer an afterthought but a core foreign policy objective of the United States.

She said that around 1,100 rapes were reported each month in the Eastern Congo - an average of thirty-six women and girls raped every day. On her recent trip to Africa last month, Clinton met with women and girls raped and abused by soldiers and irregular forces during the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

She also said that when women were accorded their rights, they contribute to their community and their nations, but when they were marginalized, mistreated, ignored and demeaned, then progress is not possible. And often there was no legal action taken against those who perpetuate sexual violence, even when they are members of nations states armed forces.

Clinton said that the US was pressing DRC authorities in Kinshasa to bring to justice five military officers who have either been directly implicated in rape and violence against young women, or created the environment in which the abuses could occur.

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said that abuse of young women is not limited to developing countries as evidenced by recent highly publicized cases of murder, long-term abduction and exploitation of young women in Europe and the United States.

Verhagen said that stopping violence against girls was a top priority in his country and that their actions were not motivated by pity. He said his government was under the obligation to protect and to promote these rights as they had ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The U.S co-sponsored Security Council resolution expected to be approved next week, would create a special representative to the U.N. secretary-general to lead, coordinate efforts to end gender-based violence in armed conflicts.

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Category:

News & Politics

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• Hillary Clinton
• sexual violence women
• HIV AIDS
• Maxime Verhagen
• MaximsNews Network
• children armed conflict
• DR Congo