ISLAMABAD – Pakistan is deploying a female infantry engagement team to theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, said the country’s permanentrepresentative to the UN on Saturday.
As she gave her two cents during a debate in the General Assembly on sexualviolence, Maleeha Lodhi added, “Pakistan has achieved the goal ofdeployment of 15 per cent female staff officers in peacekeeping missions,thus fulfilling its responsibilities in accordance with the uniformedgender parity strategy and Security Council resolutions.”
She maintained, “Our professional peacekeepers to the UN, including ourfemale peacekeepers, continue to set the highest standards in fulfillingpeacekeeping mandates, and protecting all vulnerable segments of thepopulation, including women, from violence in some of the most dangerousand complex conflict situations around the world.”
The envoy hailed the eliminated of the breeding grounds spawned byunresolved disputes as one of the most effective ways to preventconflict-based sexual violence.
She also called for the full integration of gender perspectives in the UN’speace-building paradigm.
Ambassador Lodhi added, “By leaving disputes unaddressed, the SecurityCouncil runs the risk of acting selectively and displaying a blind spot forsome of the most vulnerable women who suffer disproportionately fromviolence perpetrated by foreign occupation.”
Appreciating the UN Security Council for leading global efforts toeliminate the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence, the Pakistaniambassador pointed out that women, especially young girls, continued tobrave the main brunt of physical and psychological abuse.
She underscored that the occupying forces and aggressors were employingsexual violence as a broader strategy to repress, dominate and subjugatethe defenceless and vulnerable communities.