Although resolution 1325 was not a solution, it was an important step in the development of international recognition and response to prevent and confront the use of tactical rape and sexual violence as deliberate strategies in many conflicts. With the limitations noted in Chapter Seven, it acknowledged women's constructed vulnerability in societies that fail to recognise women's human rights and rights to political, economic and cultural equality. Resolution 1325 did provide a basis for additional resolutions strengthening, expanding and reaffirming the importance of confronting tactical rape and sexual violence in conflict. Limitations inherent in the resolution would also be associated with further resolutions – in particular, the reality that states may make resolutions and then ignore them. But, importantly, these resolutions stimulated debate, and member states accepted that sexual violence and tactical rape fell within the mandate of the Security Council because they impacted states’ security – even though, as will be considered in Chapter Nine later, the precise type of security was not always clear.

The years between resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008)

Resolution 1325 was a welcome step, but achievements were mixed, with continuing tactical rape and sexual violence in conflicts, including those perpetrated by states. One article in 2000 referred to the rape of more than 20,000 women. World Vision and other NGOs reported tactical rape in Kosovo. Reports of widespread rapes in Sierra Leone led to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, established in 2002 by agreement between the UN and the government of Sierra Leone ‘pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1325’. The statute of this Special Court allowed ‘prosecution of rape as a crime against humanity and as a violation of common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for Protection of War Victims and of Additional Protocol II thereto of 8 June 1977.’ In 2007, the Special Court convicted three accused of rape as a crime against humanity and for sexual slavery and forced marriage. This was another judiciary established and operating within a context that was not gender-equitable, although demonstrating some commitment to confronting rape in conflict.

In 2004, hundreds of thousands of Congolese women in the DRC were reported to have been subjected to sexual violence, with reports that ‘an estimated 40 rapes occur every day in one province alone’.