RECOGNITION OF RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE AS WAR CRIMES HAS BEGUN TO REVERSE CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY, THIRD COMMITTEE TOLD

15 October 1998

Press Release
GA/SHC/3473/

RECOGNITION OF RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE AS WAR CRIMES HAS BEGUN TO REVERSE CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY, THIRD COMMITTEE TOLD

19981015 CORRECTION

On page 18 of Press Release GA/SHC/3473 of 14 October, the first part of the summary of the statement by the observer of the Holy See was inadvertently omitted. The full summary reads as follows:

ELLEN LUKAS, observer for the Holy See, said that despite the reservations of the Holy See to certain sections of the Beijing Platform, it had joined the consensus, convinced that there existed a close correspondence between the "living heart of the Platform" and Catholic social teaching. Since that time, however, too many women continued to be poor, powerless and victims of violence. According to the 1997 UNDP Human Development Report, which had focused on poverty, income-poor persons worldwide were less likely to be children, elderly persons or women. Female wages were likely to be three fourths of male wages. Men needed to spend only 47 per cent of their time working, while women spent 52 per cent of their time working -- because so many women had a triple workload of child-rearing, household management and income-generating work.

Aware of the injustice suffered by women, the Church had committed itself to renewed efforts to lift the status of women, she said. On the eve of the Beijing Conference, Pope John Paul II had pledged the Church to supporting an option particularly in favour of girls and women. He had called on all Catholic caring and educational institutions to adopt a concentrated, priority strategy directed to girls and women, especially to the poorest. Further, he had asked all educational services linked to the Church to guarantee equal access for girls, to instil in boys a sense of women's dignity and worth, to provide additional possibilities for girls who had suffered from disadvantages and to identify and remedy the reason for girls leaving school prematurely. The Church was aware of the importance of the forthcoming reassessment of the progress made in implementing the measures of the Beijing Conference to better the lot of women in the world. The Holy See considered itself in solidarity with all authentic initiatives to improve the situation of women.

* *** *