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	International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict by Pramila Patten, Virginia Gamba Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict   June 2018   International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.   For millennia, women and children have been deliberately targeted in wartime, as women are considered the custodians and propagators of ethnic identity, while children are seen as the future of their group. Shockingly, these tactics continue to be used in contemporary conflicts on a widespread and systematic scale.   While data is extremely limited, we know that up to 8,000 children are estimated to have been born as a result of wartime rape in Northern Uganda alone. This is by no means unique to the Ugandan conflict, but is a pattern that traverses all cultures and continents, regions and religions, throughout the long sweep of history, as part of the legacy of war.   Children born of wartime rape are today living in settings such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Colombia, Nigeria, Mali, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and no doubt in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh.   In the case of Iraq, my Office has commissioned research on children born of rape, and options for their legal registration and social integration. Moreover, the Joint Communiqué we signed with the Government of Iraq mentions the precarious situation of children born of wartime rape, and the importance of upholding their rights and meeting their needs.   Likewise, in the case of Myanmar, we are in dialogue with the Government including on measures to address the stigma suffered by sexual violence survivors and their children.   Although rape is profoundly traumatic for both individuals and communities as a whole, little attention has been paid to the lives of children born from it.   The fate of such children is often inextricably linked to that of their mothers. The well-being and acceptance of the mother, within the family and community, is critical to the welfare of the child.   Along with their mothers, these children too often face significant challenges to accessing services and support. Due to the deep social stigma, the issue is chronically underreported, and, as a result, under-resourced and rarely addressed.   Children born of sexual violence suffer as a result of their mothers’ own stigmatization, social exclusion, and discrimination. They are at risk of infanticide, abuse, abandonment, rejection, marginalization and severe human rights violations.   It is often rightly said, that for women and children, war is not over when it’s over.   After everything they have endured, many survivors of armed groups such as the LRA, ISIL, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and others, face the additional heartbreak of being shunned by their own community.   While rape is the action of the perpetrator, stigma is the reaction of society. Those who inflict stigma are not the enemy; they are often members of the victims’ family, who have come to view them as “affiliates of the enemy”.   Such women may be forced to choose between returning to their home or caring for their new child – a choice no one should ever have to make.   Children born of rape face immense social stigma and are often ostracized by families and communities. They are sometimes viewed as “bad blood”: both a painful memory of the past, and a threat to the community’s future. It is as if they are “born guilty”: tainted by their father’s crime. As a result, they have been dispossessed of a name and a nationality, of identity and inheritance, in societies polarized by war.   This, in turn, has meant that many are denied access to healthcare, education, social welfare and protection, leaving them more vulnerable to exploitation, forced recruitment, trafficking, and other forms of abuse.   The trauma of wartime rape leaves lasting physical and psychological scars that endure long after the peace accord has been signed, and the guns have fallen silent. The consequences echo across generations. They live on most tangibly in the children born of war, who are often abandoned and orphaned as the living, breathing reminders of brutality.   Indeed, the weapon of rape is consciously used to shred the social fabric and unravel kinship ties. The shame of sexual violence turns victims into outcasts. Where their biological origins show in their physical features, children “fathered by the enemy” can be sentenced to a lifetime of stigma, suspicion and social exclusion.   In Rwanda, for instance, the school curriculum was revised after the 1994 genocide to include specific discussion of children born of rape, to offset peer discrimination and harassment.   A child’s future can be jeopardized by the lack of a paternal clan identity and a social safety net. Without this, they risk being excluded from land ownership, which is not only a vital economic resource, but also a symbol of rootedness and belonging. The result is to disrupt and fragment the social structure across generations, by reducing their prospects for marriage and for raising a family of their own.   The plight of children born of wartime rape is both a human rights issue, and a security issue. It demands a survivor-centred, rights-based response that includes efforts to restore peace and the Rule of Law.   Justice for these crimes is critical. It tells the community that what happened was not the victims’ fault. For most war crimes, this would seem self-evident. But sexual violence is the only crime that stigmatizes the victim, rather than the perpetrator. Formal accountability can lift this stigma and shift it to the accused – not only in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of the local community as well.   Yet, while accountability should be the rule, it remains the rare exception. Even more rare, is the recognition of children conceived through rape, as victims before the law.   Colombia is the only country that grants such children official recognition as war victims in their own right. It is important to recall that the 2014 Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Reparations for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence defines the crime broadly to encompass affected family members, including children born as a result of pregnancy from rape. This guidance should be followed at the national-level as a best practice.   In countries where women are denied the right to confer their nationality upon their children, the latter can be relegated to a legal limbo. Lack of formal citizenship can have long-term economic impacts if children are denied access to medical care, education, or other social benefits.   Statelessness also impairs their freedom of movement, ability to receive asylum, chances of being formally adopted, and their vulnerability to trafficking.   The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women gives women the right to transmit their nationality to their children. This right must be respected, even in the midst of war.   After all, human rights don’t end when wars begin; and displacement does not displace basic human needs and aspirations. Without targeted support, mothers and their children born of sexual violence are set on a trajectory of poverty, discrimination, violence, and mounting obstacles to living a life of dignity in which their rights are respected.   It must, therefore, be recognized – once and for all – that these children are not just the consequence of a human rights violation; they are the holders of human rights themselves. Children born as a result of war are entitled to the same rights as any other children, outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This includes the right to identity documents and services, in a way that does not further isolate or ostracize them.   The rights, needs and vulnerabilities of these children require specific understanding, attention and approaches that are both linked with those of the mother, where appropriate, as well as tailored to the individual rights and needs of each girl or boy.   This is an emergency because lives are at stake: stigma can not only scar, it can kill. In the absence of policies or institutional mechanisms that allow children born as a result of rape to integrate into the social fabric, an entire generation of children will be considered outcasts and forced to live on the margins of society.   Children born of wartime rape constitute an under-served category of war-victims. Though each child’s story is different and their needs are unique, all face a range of potential barriers to the realization of their human rights. Assessing and addressing these barriers should be a priority for all of us.   The silence around this issue must be broken, the existence of these children is not a taboo topic. The leadership of Argentina, in designating the 19th of June the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, is a sign of enhanced political momentum. It provides an occasion for all of us to stand in solidarity with the survivors and their children born of rape, and pay tribute to those working on the frontlines to support them.   http://www.un.org/en/events/elimination-of-sexual-violence-in-conflict/resources.shtml   June 2018   Children faced with Unspeakable Violence in Conflict as Number of Grave Violations Increased in 2017 - Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Virginia Gamba.   The number of children affected by armed conflict and the severity of grave violations affecting them increased in the past year, concludes the annual report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict released this week.   “The report details the unspeakable violence children have been faced with, and shows how in too many conflict situations, parties to conflict have an utter disregard for any measures that could contribute to shielding the most vulnerable from the impact of war,” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Virginia Gamba, declared.   Over 21,000 grave violations of children’s rights have been verified by the United Nations from January to December 2017, an unacceptable increase from previous years (15,500 in 2016).   The crises unfolding in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen brought about serious increases in verified grave violations. In Syria, children have suffered the highest number of verified violations ever recorded in the country. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, crises in the Kasais led to an eight-fold increase of attacks on schools and hospitals (515). In a despicable trend, almost half of the 881 verified child casualties in Nigeria resulted from suicide attacks, including the use of children as human bombs.   Thousands of children were killed or maimed in 2017 with numbers growing substantially in Iraq and Myanmar, while remaining unacceptably high in Afghanistan and Syria.   “When your own house or your school can be attacked without qualms, when traditional safe-havens become targets, how can boys and girls escape the brutality of war?,” Virginia Gamba, declared. “This shows a blatant disregard for international law by parties to conflict, making civilians, especially children, increasingly vulnerable to violence, use and abuse,” she added.   * Access the report: http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/children-faced-with-unspeakable-violence-in-conflict-as-number-of-grave-violations-increased-in-2017/ Visit the related web page
	Indigenous workers receive stolen wages settlement from State Government more class actions underway by Guardian Australia, agencies Australia   Indigenous workers receive stolen wages settlement from Queensland government. The legal class action was lodged on behalf of 10,000 Indigenous people whose wages were stolen (withheld) by the Government between 1939 and 1972.   A class action on behalf of an estimated 10,000 Indigenous workers in Queensland who had their wages stolen last century has been settled with the state government for $190 million dollars.   Lead applicant Hans Pearson took the Queensland government to the federal court to claim wages he earned but did not receive.   His class action covered 1939 to 1972, when he and his fellow Indigenous workers had their pay given to the state under the Protection Act.   “This has been a long 12-year road,” Pearson said this week. “On behalf of the thousands of people who are now part of this settlement, I want to thank everyone who supported our claim.”   He said his late wife Anna “started this all off” by taking him to see a Cairns-based law firm before he filed his claim in September 2016. “Without her starting the ball rolling nothing would have happened,” he said.   Pearson argued the state government breached its duties as a trustee and fiduciary by withholding the wages. The government made unauthorised withdrawals and welfare fund deductions.   Mr Pearson believed he earned up to 7,000 pounds as a stockman during the 1950s and 60s and was planning on buying a house in North Queensland for his young family. But, when he went to collect his money, he only received a fraction of that amount.   "When the police called me up to the police station, me and the wife went up and he had a cheque waiting for me for 28 pounds," Hans Pearson told ABC News. "I said: ''Is this all I''m getting?'' and he said: ''Well, that''s all you have after more than 10 years of working''."   "Those days, we weren''t treated well, we ate in the wood heap, they had no mattress to lay on … just laid on hard boards with our swags''.   "I''m 80 years of age now and I first went out to work when I was 14. "A lot of old people, they''re all gone my age, the people who really did work on cattle stations and farms and cane cutting and all that business never got their full pay."   Mr Pearson said his wife and brothers died before they got to see a proper settlement. He has lived in community housing for more than 40 years and said being denied his wages had deprived him of his life-long dream of home ownership.   John Bottoms, special counsel of Pearson’s legal representatives BE Law, said the settlement was overdue acknowledgement of the injustice faced by thousands of Indigenous people.   “Through their hard work and toil in harsh conditions, the Indigenous claimants in this case played a significant role in the development of modern Queensland,” Stuart Price, chief executive of litigation funder Litigation Lending, said. “That they were denied wages during this time is an historic wrong.”   Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie estimated about $500m was stolen from Indigenous people in Queensland.   Indigenous stolen wages at centre of Western Australia class action.   A class action is being prepared to recover stolen or missing wages earned by Indigenous people in Western Australia. Until 1972, the West Australian government withheld up to three quarters of wages earned by Aboriginal people.   Promises to disperse the funds were made, but they disappeared into government coffers and financial records vanished.   WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation chairman Jim Morrison said he had been in talks with lawyers about a class action for months.   "We now know that probably half the Aboriginal population in Western Australia are stolen generation and/or descendants. "With that removal and being put into missions, there were a lot cases where our people went out to work and 75 per cent of their wages was put into trusts."   Mr Morrison said lawyers were trying to find potential victims of stolen wages across the state. "They''ve been to the Kimberley, they''ve been to the Pilbara, they''re going to Kalgoorlie this week," he said.   "Really now it''s about encouraging our mob to come forward to actually register, to think about the potential for them, what their old people went through and what the potential is for their children."   Mr Morrison said he did not know how much money might be clawed back in WA. WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt said he thought some kind of legal action would come.   "Aboriginal people had wages taken from them, deliberately so by governments of the day," he said. "In Western Australia we''ve had a particular problem where we haven''t had a lot of records around it so it''s been very difficult for people to make their case.   "But I suspect as a result of what''s happened in Queensland and also the reforms … around [WA] class actions, I''d expect that we''ll probably see one in Western Australia in the not too distant future.   "This is clearly an issue that we''re going to have to have another look at whether we like it or not, because I expect it''ll be before the courts in due course."   Similar class actions are being considered in the Northern Territory and New South Wales.   http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/10/tens-of-thousands-of-indigenous-australians-may-be-eligible-for-stolen-wages-class-action http://ab.co/2JMvyGD http://bit.ly/2XLk5ks Visit the related web page
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