“These last years, violence against women, in particular sexual violence, has become an enormous problem in the DRC, notably in the conflict zones in the east of the country.

According to the data of the UNFPA (United Nations Populations Fund), from January to September 2009, close to 9,000 new cases of sexual violence were recorded.

The majority of these cases occurred in the provinces of North and South Kivu. As for the perpetrators, it is established that in the Kivus, it is men in uniform or armed men, while in the rest of the country, the majority of perpetrators are civilians.

I congratulate the DRC Government on their engagement to respond to this problem, and in particular the Gender Minister’s leadership in the development of the national strategy against gender based violence. The launching of this national strategy today is proof of the Government's determination to eradicate this curse of gender based violence.

This strategy is the fruit of a collaboration, which we welcome, between the Congolese authorities: the Gender Ministry that will assure the coordination, the Ministries of Defense, Justice, Health, the Interior, and the United Nations system in the DRC.

The strategy also implies an active and sustained involvement of civil society as well as the rest of the international community. The size of the curse will require the total engagement of the Government and all its partners to fight it.

Within the framework of the partnership that binds us to the DRC Government, the United Nations system will play its part, in the implementation of the strategy; concentrating firstly on important actions and activities in the short to middle term sustained by bilateral and multilateral financial backers.

This important strategy is structured around five components: the reinforcement of the application of the law and the struggle against impunity; the reinforcement of prevention and protection measures; support to army, police and justice sector reform that take into account measures related to the fight against sexual violence; multi sector support to victims and survivors; and the collection and management of data.

The national strategy comes from the spirit of UN Security Council resolution 1888, which advocates collaboration between national governments and the United Nations, with a view to the setting up of overall strategies against sexual violence.”