The Algerian delegation exposed before the UN Security Council the massive and repeated violations committed by the Moroccan occupation forces against Sahrawi women human rights activits.
During the open debate held by the Security Council, yesterday, Wednesday, under the title “Women, Peace and Security”, at the initiative of the British Presidency on the topic “Conflict-related violence”, the Algerian delegation exposed “the terrible and repeated violations committed by the Moroccan occupation against human rights in Western Sahara.”
In this context, the Algerian delegation touched on the facts revealed by a broad coalition of non-governmental organizations, which condemned the massive and repeated violations of the Moroccan occupation forces using sexual violence as a means to intimidate Sahrawi women human rights activits, such as Sultana Khaya and Aminatou Haidar, to name a few.
The Algerian delegation also pointed out that these violations were also reported and recorded by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, Marie Lawlor, stressing that these “systematic violations” require greater attention from the international community and specialized bodies, especially the office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, as part of its mandate.
Accordingly, the delegation stressed that “the global, fair and equitable briefing on the issue of sexual violence in conflict areas requires the international community, especially the Security Council, to deal with all cases with objectivity, non-selectivity and without prioritizing the fact that sexual violence must be condemned wherever it is and whoever committed it, especially with regard to grave violations in areas under foreign occupation.”
On this occasion, the Algerian delegation highlighted the efforts made by the Algerian state to empower women and ensure their protection from any malicious behavior and assault on their dignity, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, which protects women from all forms of violence in all places and circumstances, in the public sphere and in the professional and private spheres, based on its conviction regarding the central role of women in building a healthy society and the importance of their effective participation in the political, economic and social fields.
The Algerian delegation also responded, during the discussions, to the slanders that the Moroccan delegation has been unable to use on every occasion to cover up its crimes in the Saharan occupied lands, where the delegation in particular refuted the blatant allegations of the Moroccan representative who tried to deceive the international community with false allegations.
The Algerian delegation also explained that the repetition of false allegations of the alleged recruitment of Sahrawi children in the refugee camps, “is nothing but evidence of the desperate Moroccan attempts to convince some of the veracity of its fabrications, which are refuted by the reports of the United Nations, its agencies and non-governmental organizations that regularly visit the refugee camps in Tindouf for the simple reason that this phenomenon does not exist.
In this regard, the Algerian delegation stressed, as a reminder, the statements of the spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, last January, who categorically refuted the false allegations made by the Moroccan media regarding the alleged presence of child soldiers during the visit of the Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf.
This denial, adds the Algerian delegation, constitutes a blow to “the desperate and miserable attempts by Morocco to distort the legitimate struggle of the Sahrawi people in light of its renewed maneuvers aimed at diverting the international community’s view of the reality of the conflict in Western Sahara linked to the Moroccan occupation.”
The Algerian delegation explained to the representative of Morocco that “instead of indulging in propaganda and falsifying facts, it would have been better for it to pay more attention to the conditions of its children who are exhausted by hunger and poverty, with high rates of school dropouts and the spread of drug abuse in the school environment.”
He went on to say, “These innocent children who are used by Moroccan officials as a diplomatic tool to blackmail neighboring countries by organizing irregular immigration campaigns, and are used, against their will, as a factor in promoting sex tourism in light of the spread of the phenomenon of child sexual abuse known to the public and private, which even Moroccan non-governmental organizations denounce.
It should be noted that the representative of South Africa, for his part, denounced, in particular, the “systematic sexual violence” practiced by Morocco in Western Sahara, which provoked the reaction of the representative of Morocco, who found nothing in his intervention but describing the statements of the South African diplomat as “inappropriate and politically motivated.”
