From Afghanistan to Liberia, from Colombia to the Congo, women and girls are being subjected to rape, torture and slavery that defy the imagination, a UN official said on Thursday.
Despite efforts to put "gender consideration" in UN humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, progress has been slow in achieving changes on the ground, Thoraya Obaid, director of the UN Population Fund, told the 15-member UN Security Council.
"We are here to speak about the unspeakable - the gender-based and sexual violence that is occurring on a massive scale in conflict and post-conflict situations around the world," Obeid said.
The council, in an all-day debate, was taking stock of its four-year old resolution, the first recommending women in war zones get special treatment and have a seat at the peace negotiating table.
The measure called for training of peacekeepers on protecting women and for adding special advisers on women and girls to peacekeeping missions, some of which has been done.
But so far women comprise only 1 percent of the soldiers and 5 percent of the police serving in peacekeeping ventures. And only two women serve as heads of UN missions among 25 men, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping.
He said peacekeepers themselves had been guilty of abuse. "Our work cannot be considered complete ...as long as sexual exploitation or abuse is being committed by a single peacekeeper or humanitarian worker," Guehenno said.
Shortly before he spoke a UN watchdog report said investigators were looking into allegations of peacekeepers exploiting "young girls" in Bunia in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a report to the council said recent incidents of sexual violence had occurred in Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, the Congo, the Ivory Coast and Sudan's Darfur region, among others.
Although such violence was widely documented, he said the collective international response in relation to the sheer magnitude of the problem was highly inadequate.
Noleen Heyser, director of the UN Development Fund for Women, said rape was "systematically deployed as a weapon of war." In Haiti and East Timor, rape had been used to punish wives and female sympathisers of a perceived enemy.
She said the world had to make sure that those responsible for crimes against women were not rewarded with high profile jobs as a result of negotiated peace agreements.
The council ended its debate by issuing a three-page policy statement, read by British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, who organised the meeting. It asks Annan to submit an action plan, with time lines, by next October to implement programs across the spectrum of UN bodies, agencies and missions.
"The Security Council considers that an increase in the representation of women in all aspects of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace-building operations and humanitarian response is urgently needed," the statement said.
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