Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Sima Sami Bahous, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), on the situation in the Great Lakes Region.
Bahous said that peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will only be secured when women are treated not as “spoils of war” but as empowered agents of stability, accountability and peace.
She also asked the Council to protect the peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, and “its critical mandate in the DRC. And recall the hundreds of trials against perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence. Recall the women activists and human rights defenders who have enjoyed MONUSCO’s protection.”