Daily Times

On June 19, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/69/293) proclaimed 19 June of each year the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, in order to raise awareness of the need to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence. The date was chosen to commemorate the adoption on 19 June 2008 of Security Council resolution 1820 (2008), in which the council condemned sexual violence as a tactic of war and an impediment to peace building.

As per the UN website, the United Nations defines conflict-related sexual violence as a term that refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict”.

On the 2020 International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, on 19 June 2020, António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, in his message said “Sexual violence in conflict is a brutal crime, mainly perpetrated against women and girls, but also affecting men and boys, that in threatening international peace and security”. He added, We must prevent and end these crimes; hold perpetrators accountable; and expand support for all those affected”.

While all UN efforts for the elimination of sexual violence in conflict zones in the world and the punishment of the perpetrators are supported, this article focuses on highlighting the sexual violence against the women, which has been and is being used by the Indian military and para-military forces in the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, as a weapon of war.

It is a well known fact that for the last 70 years India has failed all efforts of the UN Security Council to hold a plebiscite in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, in the light of its resolutions of 1948/49, to let the people of the state give their opinion, whether they wanted to join Pakistan or India. Therefore, since 1989, the people of Kashmir have launched their legitimate, peaceful freedom struggle.

To crush the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle, India is using more than 900,000 military/para-military troops in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, who have committed endless HR violations, especially sexual violence (raping the women), with total impunity. This has been extensively documented, some details of which are mentioned here.

According to the Yale Review of International Studies dated June 15, 2015, the systematic sexual violence is one of the most prevalent and potent tactics used to dis-empower Kashmiri freedom fighters and their communities.

To crush Kashmiris’ freedom struggle, India is using more than 900,000 military/para-military troops in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir

According to a 2006 study by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), nearly 12 percent of Kashmiri women have suffered from the attacks of sexual violence since 1989″. These attacks are part of an organized strategy, “to punish, intimidate, coerce, humiliate and degrade” Kashmiri freedom fighters.

As stated in the Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights Report, Volume 5, Issue 9, “the use of rape by the Indian military/para-military troops in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir is common and routinely goes unpunished”. As per the report, for legal action, the rape used in internal and international conflicts is a crime and prohibited according to the Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which India has signed.

As per Al Jazeera News, dated 21 August 2019, in its July 2019 report, the UN said: “There has been no progress in the Kunan Poshpora mass-rape case from 1991, and Indian authorities continue to thwart attempts of the survivors to get justice”. It also called on India to “investigate and prosecute all cases of sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by state and non-state actors, and provide reparations to victims”.

As per the Nation dated 28 November 2019, as many as 11,140 Kashmiri women, making up nine percent of the total women population of Kashmir, have been forcibly raped and gang raped by the occupying Indian Army since 1989 in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

At the 52nd United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Professor William Baker gave testimony that the Indian security forces actively deployed rape on the Kashmiri populace. An Amnesty International report in 1992 stated that rape is conducted during counteroffensives against Kasmiris as part of a bid to methodically insult them.

A study in 2005 by Médecins Sans Frontières concluded that the rate of sexual violence against Kashmiri women was one of the highest among the world’s conflict zones, in comparison to many other regions experiencing conflict, such as Chechnya, Sierra Lone and Sri Lanka, the number of witnesses to rape in Kashmir was far greater.

In view of the above discussion, it is important that the international community, especially the major world powers condemn, the use of the rape as a weapon of war in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, by the Indian military and para-military forces. This should also be condemned by the UNSC and it should ask India to stop any future, such occurrence, and India should punish its military and para-military personnel involved in the rape cases in Kashmir. If India fails to comply, then, the UNSC should charge the involved Indian security personnel under the legal provisions of the above mentioned four Geneva Conventions. In this context, being a party to the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan should also consider taking up this case with the UNSC.

The writer is a former consultant in Islamabad