Violences sexuelles des casques bleus : Défis et réalisations pour ...

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these takes place in countries already seriously affected by systematic and
generalized sexual violence. In this situation, peacekeepers are the last hope of
civilian populations and especially for women. Women suffer a lot from today’s
armed conflicts because they are usually in intra-state conflicts, the main victims
with their children.
This suffering has been invisible for a long time. It has been added into the
international relations security agenda by the feminist movement and academics.
Only the feminists considered that rape was an issue and a threat as important as
traditional strategic issues and threats for international peace and security.
Furthermore, they could understand better the tardiness of the intervention of the
international community because they had studied for a long time the
marginalization of women in international politics.
Humanitarian international law is clear: rape and other sexual abuses are a
war crime which must be prosecuted and punished. The same is true when there
is no conflict because international human right law forbids rapes and sexual
abuses. However, troops contributing countries are not currently willing to charge
their own soldiers and the United Nations lacks of power to coerce them to charge
their soldiers. Again, international law is clear: there is a legal obligation to charge
and pursue war criminals. There are no exceptions to that because this obligation
is part of the imperative norms of international law (jus cogens).
The United Nations has adopted many internal measures like the conduct
and discipline team, the zero-tolerance policy, various resolutions of the Security
Council and the General Assembly, the gender advisers, the Secretary's general
bulletins and the multiple trainings offered to peacekeepers. However, the ones
who could possibly force states to pursuit have not yet been adopted.
For this reason, many said the United Nations did nothing about these
issues and even wanted to hide the reality. However this question relies more in
the hands of the member states and more importantly, Geneva Conventions need
to be enforced in the first place by the High Contracting Parties. Before blaming
the United Nations, they are a lot of measures which should be adopted by the
member states. Nevertheless, the United Nations cannot dismiss its responsibility