Crime: Sexual Violence

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I suppose it is a tragic inevitability that shooting, bombing, injuring and killing people violently is part of war, and there is often debate about which incidents of bombing, shooting or violence are within the moral or legal framework. However, there is no dispute that sexual violence in the context of war is outside all moral and legal limits. I believe that those who in engage in this kind of behaviour know perfectly well that they are outside what is morally acceptable—unless they have so dehumanised those whom they are abusing that they have largely lost their own humanity. We should be clear about this: there are no contexts in which this is acceptable, either to the overwhelming majority of victims who are women, or as we are increasingly seeing in Syria, the minority who are men, often young men.

That is why I am proud that our own Government have seized on this issue as one of the most important for the G8 and for our foreign policy. Can my noble friend assure me that, as the Foreign Secretary and colleagues move to try to engage in negotiations about a new international protocol on this issue, these crimes will be taken to the International Criminal Court if such a protocol is accepted? Can my noble friend also assure me that we shall see not just a legal change but, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee has said, a cultural change, which will ensure that those who engage in sexual violence can never be regarded as national heroes, but always as cowardly and brutal people who damage their own humanity as they damage that of their victims?