Mr. President,

I would like to start by expressing my appreciation to Japan for taking the initiative to organize today’s briefing. I’d like to thank Ms. Wallstrom, SRSG on Sexual Violence and Ms. Mayanja, Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Gender Issues for their briefings.

Mr. President,

Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security adopted by the Security Council ten years ago is a landmark document that has laid the foundation for international cooperation in the area of women, peace and security. The Council has since done a lot in following up to that resolution and member states have worked actively in implementing relevant measures as required by the resolution. Concepts of gender equality, women’s empowerment and preventing and combating sexual violence have become increasingly embedded in people’s consciousness and efforts in this regard have achieved remarkable results.

In the coming period, there is still a lot to be done by the international community for the fulfillment of various targets set by Res.1325 and towards this end, relevant UN agencies and organs should work within their respective fields according to their mandates and cooperate to form synergy so as to give full play to the advantages of the UN as an integrated whole. The Security Council should focus on preventing and reducing the outbreak of armed conflicts so as to minimize the root causes to the suffering of women. As the party bearing the primary responsibility of protecting its women, the country concerned should not only pay attention to the special needs and concerns of women during and after an armed conflict, but also enable women to participate fully in the process of conflict prevention, peace keeping and peace building as well as in relevant decision making. The international community and donors should provide financial and technical assistance to the countries concerned to help them with capacity building.

Mr. President,

Sexual violence is one of the major problems facing women in armed conflicts in some countries and regions. China welcomes the appointment by the Secretary General of Ms. Wallstrom as his special representative on sexual violence and supports her in fulfilling her mandate. We hope that the SRSG will enhance communication and cooperation with the countries concerned and provide constructive help to them in addressing the problem of sexual violence in armed conflict. We also hope to see greater coordination between the UN’s efforts to combat sexual violence and its work to protect women in armed conflicts so that higher efficiency can be achieved.

Mr. President,

China welcomes the report submitted by the Secretary General as requested by Res.1889 which contains a set of indicators to track the implementation of Res.1325. We express our appreciation for the tremendous amount of work carried out by the Secretariat and hope it will continue to improve those indicators.

Res.1325 covers a spectrum of areas from the protection of the rights and interests of women to the promotion of women’s participation in the prevention and settlement of conflicts. For some of those areas, it is hard to assess implementation using quantified standards -- a factor that should be taken into full account in formulating and improving the indicators. In addition, since countries differ in specific situations, levels of development and historical and cultural traditions, the indicators should be practical and applicable so that countries can have the flexibility of applying them in accordance with their specific conditions. We hope that the Secretariat will fully listen to the views of all parties concerned, especially the member states, so as to pool the wisdom of all parties and come up with a set of indicators that can provide useful reference to member states in their implementation of Res.1325.

Thank you, Mr. President.