A top U.N. official says sexual violence is increasingly being used as “a tactic of terrorism” from Iraq, Syria and Yemen to Somalia, Nigeria and Mali.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed says “the same litany of horrors” has been told by Yazidis held captive by Islamic State extremists, girls who fled from Boko Haram, Somali women liberated from the al-Shabab extremist group and women living under an al-Qaida-linked group in northern Mali.
She told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that extremist groups “are outrageously boosting profiting through the sale, trade and trafficking of women and girls.”
Adama Dieng, the acting U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said sexual violence is also “a tool of dehumanization and shame” and “a weapon of punishment and persecution.”
