“The U.N. Security Council [on Monday] unanimously adopted a resolution strengthening ways to fight the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war,” VOA News reports (Besheer, 6/24). “[T]he council adopted a legally binding resolution demanding the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violence by all parties to armed conflict,” the Associated Press/Huffington Post reports, adding the resolution also “noted that sexual violence can constitute a crime against humanity and a contributing act to genocide, called for improved monitoring of sexual violence in conflict, and urged the U.N. and donors to assist survivors.” According to the AP, “It was the broadest resolution adopted by the council on the sexual violence in conflict” (Lederer, 6/24).

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “said the Security Council resolution sent a strong signal to perpetrators that their acts will no longer be tolerated and they will be held accountable,” Reuters reports (Nichols, 6/24). Actor Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, “criticized U.N. Security Council powers for their lack of action over wartime rapes, invoking Syria and other conflicts in a surprise speech to the body,” Agence France-Presse notes. “I understand that there are many difficult things for the Security Council to agree on, but sexual violence in conflict should not be one of them,” she said, adding, “If the U.N. Security Council sets rape and sexual violence in conflict as a priority, it will become one and progress will be made. If you do not this horror will continue,” according to AFP. Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, who chaired the Security Council meeting, “said he would organize a new meeting on the topic at the U.N. General Assembly in September,” the news agency notes (6/25).