UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- "Rape is one of the greatest peace and security challenges of our time," yet it remains low on the agenda of global policy efforts, the UN secretary-general's special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallstrom, said here on Friday.
The statement came as Wallstrom briefed reporters here on the United Nations' efforts to combat sexual violence against women.
"There can be no security, without women's security. Rape is not a lesser evil in the hierarchy of war time horrors, it is not a crime that the world can dismiss as collateral damage, or as cultural, or inevitable," said Wallstrom.
"Widespread and systematic sexual violence is both a crime against the victim and a crime against humanity," she added.
Wallstrom noted that because sexual violence pervades during times of war, it is often dismissed as being an inevitable part of conflict.
"All political and military leaders must recognize that mass rape is no more inevitable, nor acceptable than mass murder," she said.
Upon her return from a recent trip to Liberia, Wallstrom noted that rape is still the number one reported crime in the formerly war-torn country.
According to the UN "Stop Rape Now" advocacy group, 46 percent of reported rape cases to the Liberian National Police in 2007 involved girls under age 18.
Sexual and gender-based violence in Liberia carries consequences of beyond those of physical trauma, such as family and cultural stigmatization.
"Around 15 percent of those who were raped ended up getting pregnant," noted the UN advocacy organization.
Throughout history, rape has been the least condemned and most silenced war crime, said Wallstrom. "There will always be numbers that are left in the shadows."
However, Wallstrom said she aims to bring the stories of rape survivors to the top of international peace and security agendas.
"My role is to sustain the drum-beat of public outrage and bring those voices to the policy forum of the United Nations and the Security Council," said Wallstrom.
In September 2009, the UN Security Council adopted a milestone resolution which called on UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to appoint a special representative to provide coherent and strategic leadership to address sexual violence in armed conflict.
Appointed to the position six months ago, Wallstrom said the role holds a historic opportunity and responsibility "not only to the (UN) secretary-general and the Security Council, but above all to the survivors of this soul shattering crime."
