United Nations, April 19, 2018 (PPI-OT): The head of the United Nations (UN) women’s empowerment agency, amid the outrage over the Kathua and Unnao rape cases, said acts of rape and murder dehumanise societies and letting the perpetrators of such crimes go unpunished is a warning sign for all.
The UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said, “To rape and kill children is to defy and violate fundamental aspects of our shared humanity. No rape and no murder is justifiable.”
She said, “If they go unchallenged and unpunished, they speak to a reduced value of human life and of an abdication of responsibility that are warning signs for us all.” The senior UN official said families of both the victims have suffered losses and await justice.
There have been too many such atrocities, and too often it is women and girls who are deliberately targeted intentionally, instilling fear and building divides, she said. Mlambo-Ngcuka stressed that the assertion of the human rights of everyone everywhere, and their protection by the rule of law, is a fundamental tenet of the UN.
UN Resident Coordinator in India Yuri Afanasiev had strongly condemned the gang-rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Kathua district of occupied Kashmir and of the 17-year-old girl in Unnao, India, saying an unequivocal commitment by leadership at the highest level to address sexual violence and to ensure accountability for such crimes is essential for justice to be delivered.
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