Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict gave a poignant report on the situation in Iraq, and Syria following her mission in the region from 16 to 29 April at a The Hague Working Group conference on the 13 May 2015 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in which Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) participated.

Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura is responsible for strengthening the capacity of governments to develop crime prevention measures, address impunity of perpetrators and increase access to justice for victims.

In the presence of Ambassadors, the civil society and the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC, Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura expressed her deep concerns for the situation of girls and women in the regions controlled by ISIS, she met directly with women who escaped the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) captivity and survived sexual violence.

The Special Representative witnessed, inter alia, girls sometimes as young as 12 years old, being stripped naked in markets and sold for 200 US$. The scale of these sexual and gender-based crimes, has never been seen before, she reported.

The challenges for the international community are enormous, she explained:

ISIS is not a State, the militants originate from more than 130 different countries, they use the abduction of girls and women to finance their organization and they are active in a region and in countries where sexual violence is sometimes neither recognized nor penalized.

The ICC has taken concrete steps to contribute to the prosecution of SGBC particularly through the Policy paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes (SGBC) (coinciding with the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict held in London in June 2014). The policy guides the implementation and utilization of the provision of the Statute of Rome to ensure the effective investigation and prosecution of SGBC. 

The Special Representative asked the stakeholders of the international criminal justice to review the policies and procedures in place to be able to tackle such “widespread and systematic” sexual and gender-based crimes.

Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura reiterated the importance of domestic implementation of the Rome Statute and the need to increase the political will at both the domestic and the international levels to end sexual violence in times of conflict.

PGA is committed to mobilize parliamentarians from this region to ratify and implement the Rome Statute of the ICC to increase national and international efforts to put an end to impunity. PGA, a parliamentary network with over 1100 Members, has called upon Iraq and Syria to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC and, at the same time, accept its ad hoc jurisdiction under Art. 12.3 of the Rome Statute for the situation of ISIS and the ongoing crisis.

PGA encourages the Iraqi and Syrian governments to call on the prosecutor of the ICC, Ms. Fatou Bensouda for immediate help to stop the sexual violence in the territory controlled by ISIS.

PGA also encourages the European Union and other key players in the international community to promote these steps by Iraq and Syria, including transmission of a ratification bill of the Rome Statute to parliament for consideration and adoption of ratification.

The ICC ratification by Iraq and Syria might have a deterrent effect on a number of groups that have supported ISIS and help to curb the widespread and systematic sexual and gender-based crimes.