US threatens veto against UN resolution on using rape as weapon of war
TNN Bureau. Updated: 4/23/2019 10:51:02 AM
Politics
Washington, Apr 23: United States has threatened to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war because of its language on reproductive and sexual health, according to a senior UN official and European diplomats.
The German mission hopes the resolution will be adopted at a special UN security council session on Tuesday on sexual violence in conflict.
But the draft resolution has already been stripped of one of its most important elements, the establishment of a formal mechanism to monitor and report atrocities, because of opposition from the US, Russia and China, which opposed creating a new monitoring body.
The Guardian reported that even after the formal monitoring mechanism was stripped from the resolution, the US was still threatening to veto the watered-down version because it includes language on victims’ support from family planning clinics. In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions. It has also opposed the use of the word 'gender', seeking it as a cover for liberal promotion of transgender rights.
In cases of disagreement in the security council, member states often fall back on previously agreed text, but the US has made it clear it would no longer accept language from a 2013 resolution on sexual violence.
“They are threatening to use their veto over this agreed language on comprehensive healthcare services including sexual and reproductive health. The language is being maintained for the time being and we’ll see over the next 24 hours how the situation evolves,” Patten said.
“It will be a huge contradiction that you are talking about a survivor-centred approach and you do not have language on sexual and reproductive healthcare services, which is for me the most critical.”
European states, led by Germany, the UK and France, have been resisting abandoning the language on access to family planning and women’s health clinics, as they believe it would mean surrendering the gains of recent decades in terms of international recognition of women’s rights.