Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)notes that:

(a)the use of sexual violence in armed conflict is a war crime; and

(b)the use of sexual violence as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population is a crime against humanity;

(2)acknowledges that Islamic State:

(a)is perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity against minority Muslim groups, Christians, Yazidis and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria;

(b)has perpetrated acts of sexual violence amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity; and

(c)has dedicated infrastructure for the kidnap, trafficking and sale of sex slaves; and

(3)calls on the Australian Government to:

(a)investigate, prosecute and hold to account Australians who have committed crimes, according to domestic or international law, as members of lslamic State or other recognised international terrorist groups; and

(b)support international efforts to gather evidence, investigate and prosecute those responsible for international crimes perpetrated by Islamic State or other recognised international terrorist groups.

According to the United Nations, sexual violence in conflict is one of the greatest moral issues of our time. It is a moral issue we face now and it has been a moral issue from time immemorial. Sexual violence was considered a natural consequence of war and a lesser crime than other breaches of the law. Sexual violence, because of its roots in the notion that women's bodies were property to be conquered, was seen as a lesser crime. Unfortunately, this notion of women's bodies as something to be conquered is something that we're seeing exemplified in ISIS's guide book. ISIS's guide book, that was produced in a very contemporary context, in 2015, codifies sexual relations between ISIS fighters and their female captives for the first time under the 15 dos and don'ts for owners of ISIS female sex slaves. One of the 15 dos is: if the owner of a female captive releases her, only he can have intercourse with her and he cannot allow someone else to have intercourse with her. Another do is: if the female captive is owned by a father, his son cannot have intercourse with her and vice versa. This was something written in 2015. Moreover, intercourse with his wife's female captive is also not permissible.

The international community has repeatedly condemned sexual and gender based violence in armed conflict, but not enough is being done to end impunity for these crimes. The Rome Statute by the International Criminal Court criminalises sexual violence as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Security Council has passed eight resolutions on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Australia has criminalised these crimes in our own Criminal Code. Australia has a whole-of-government policy—the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. We have it in our power to investigate and prosecute those who commit these crimes.

The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have extensively reported the use of sexual and gender based violence by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the 15 dos and don'ts are a very good example of their views on women. Their use of sexual violence is so widespread and systematic that it constitutes a crime against humanity. ISIS is perpetrating sexual violence as part of an armed conflict—a war crime. ISIS's intention to destroy these people aligns with definitions of genocide under international law, but not a single ISIS fighter has been prosecuted for any of these international crimes. We have a moment in time right now to end impunity for conflict related sexual violence. Now is the time.

Over 30,000 foreign fighters have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight with ISIS. Many of these foreign fighters come from countries where sexual violence is criminalised in legislation on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. More than 200 Australians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS, contributing to systematic rape and sexual violence. We must investigate and prosecute the Australians who have committed these crimes. Sexual violence is not acceptable at home. It is not acceptable abroad. Australia needs to lead by example. It's not acceptable for Australians to perpetrate sexual violence in times of conflict. We are currently advancing justice for victims of sexual violence here in Australia. We need to justly apply the law for our victims in Australia and also overseas. If we investigate and prosecute our own nationals who have committed these crimes, our allies and like-minded nations may follow.

We are a developed democracy with a sound judicial system. For decades, we have invested in the rules-based global order. Now we need to bring that order home. We need to fulfil our obligations under the Rome Statute and under our own legislation. We have the ability to investigate and prosecute sexual violence perpetrated as war crimes. Now we must show willingness. The government must establish the policy framework and provide the resources to undertake these investigations and to carry out prosecutions in order to bring justice to the victims of these crimes and to end impunity for conflict related sexual violence. We need to prosecute, not perpetrate. I want to thank Susan Hutchinson, who is here, who is leading the campaign for prosecuting not perpetrating here in Australia.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak later.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra for bringing this motion to the attention of the House. Around the world, there are currently 37 ongoing conflicts, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and Afghanistan just to name a few. The International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that around 167,000 people died in armed conflicts around the world in 2015. One in three of these deaths occurred in Syria. These conflicts turn entire towns and cities to rubble. They destroy people's lives, as people have to flee their homes. They decimate national economies. Worst of all, they lead to widespread acts of brutality, torture and sexual violence, as we've heard from the member for Canberra in her contribution. These acts of violence are most often committed against children and women, and they are committed against men as well.

ISIS have particularly targeted minority ethnic and religious groups, including Christians, Yazidis and minority Muslim communities. ISIS have also waged a war on the Kurds. Early in my time as a member of this House, I had representations from the local Kurdish community, many of whom had relatives who'd been raped, tortured and even killed by ISIS. One of the most horrific elements of the campaign of ISIS in seizing lands in Syria and Iraq is the immense level of suffering they've inflicted on these populations. In a single act in August 2014, Islamist militants massacred 80 Yazidi men and abducted women and children in a community in northern Iraq. ISIS has repeatedly executed Shiah Muslim civilians in Iraq, and Human Rights Watch reported the killing of at least 40 Shiah Turkmen civilians, including children, in a single day. ISIS marked the doors of houses belonging to religious and ethnic majorities, defining them as Christian, Shiah Shabak or Shiah Turkmen, and levied a jizya, or special tax, on them.

Like all Australians, I deplore the persecution of innocent people, particularly on the basis of their religious or ethnic minority status. I particularly want to focus my contribution on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, not only in areas currently controlled by ISIS but in other parts of the Middle East as well, and to draw attention to this persecution. Some of the earliest Christian communities in the world were in the Middle East. The Middle East, of course, is the birthplace of the three Abrahamic monotheisms, and descendants of all three of those monotheisms live in my electorate. I'm proud of the Maronite community around St George church in Thornleigh and the Coptic community around St Mary and St Sidhom Bishay church in Dural.

The position of Christians in the Middle East is particularly important, and acts of persecution and discrimination have escalated against them in the past 15 years. It's now estimated that Christians comprise only three to four per cent of the Middle East population, down from around 20 per cent of the Middle East only a century ago.

I want to particularly note the position of Chaldean Christians in the Middle East. Previously numbering around a million people, today they number less than 200,000. The persecution of Chaldean Christians was so great that, at the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, many fled Mosul, including the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Archbishop Nona, who became the Archbishop of Sydney. Of course, as ISIS has been in retreat, the position of Chaldean Christians has improved. In particular I want to note the work of Archbishop Warda, who's the Archbishop of Erbil. He has commenced a Catholic university there in order to try to train the next generation of Iraqi Christian leaders in that area, and he has had a lot of help from around the world, including from Australia, in his work there.

I also want to look at the position of Egypt, which has the largest population of Christians in North Africa. Approximately nine million people, or 10 per cent of Egypt's population, are Copts. They too have suffered at the hands of extremists committing acts of violence against religious minorities. In February 2015, the world witnessed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians martyred. These were construction workers lined up along the Libyan shore and beheaded by ISIS militants. In April 2017 at least 44 people were killed in two bombings, in Alexandria and Tanta, as Coptics celebrated Palm Sunday. I note that Pope Tawadros is currently in Australia, and I hope that his visit will help draw attention to some of the continued violence that occurs against Copts.

Many Christian leaders and others have drawn attention to this, not least of all Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the former Nuncio in Australia, who has become the Vatican's foreign minister. He has noted that there is a very important role for Christians to maintain in these societies in contributing to their social cohesion, which is vitally important to the future of the region.

I'm pleased to support the member for Canberra's motion and, in particular, to draw attention to the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to rise and support this motion from the member for Canberra in relation to the hideous crime that is sexual violence that is perpetrated against women and children during times of war. This motion is important not only for underlining the use of sexual violence as a weapon during war but also for calling out what this behaviour is: it is a war crime and it is a crime against humanity. And I don't think we should be going soft around the edges in describing this in any way, shape or form.

We've had some very, very distressing stories come to light—certainly from the member for Canberra in her articulation of the ISIL guide book. There are shocking revelations from cover to cover. The recent report from the United Nations Human Rights Office about the promotion and protection of the rights of victims of sexual violence captured by ISIL in areas of Iraq is equally distressing and disturbing reading. So it is that this motion, as I said, really brings to light an issue that this parliament does have to take seriously. We should recommit ourselves to taking action.

It seems to me that we are very clear: this is a war crime and this is a crime against humanity. We have domestic laws that would assist us to recognise those crimes, yet, as the member for Canberra made clear, not a single prosecution. So that is a very poor report card for us to reflect on. Sexual violence has always been used as a weapon during times of conflict, so it's not like this is something new. And for too long, in fact, it has probably been considered too much a by-product of war—as something kind of unavoidable. But this has absolutely changed: sexual violence, as I said, is now, rightfully, classified as a war crime. When sexual violence is perpetrated as part of an armed conflict, it is a war crime; when that violence is widespread or systemic, it's a crime against humanity; and when it's used to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic, racial or religious group, it is genocide.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognises rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence as crimes against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systemic attack directed at any civilian population. Unfortunately, these gender crimes are too often perpetrated outside the jurisdiction of institutions willing and able to bring the perpetrators to justice, leaving victims without justice and terrible crimes unanswered. This is precisely what is taking place in both Syria and Iraq now. There is no doubt that sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war by Islamic State, and over recent years there have been countless stories of women and girls—and to an extent men and boys—being subjected to sexual violence.

According to the organisation Prosecute; don't perpetrate—I acknowledge your presence, Marie; it is very powerful to have you in the chamber; thank you for being here—which has researched and recorded these stories extensively, Islamic State has kidnapped women and published entire doctrines on its use of sexual slaves and has thrown LGBTIQ people from roof tops because of their sexuality. This is an abhorrence for most of us in Australia. More than an abhorrence, it is a war crime. It is deserving of action. We cannot let these crimes go unaddressed. It is time for this parliament to step up to the mark and apply maximum pressure wherever we can to ensure that these crimes are prosecuted.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The use of sexual violence in armed conflict is a war crime and the use of sexual violence as part of a widespread, systematic attack directed against any civilian population is a crime against humanity. That definition includes rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.

As a country and as a global community of nations, we have decided these acts constitute the absolute worst crimes against the whole of humanity. It saddens me to stand here today to speak on what has been going on in the Middle East. I can think of no group of people, no regime, which mistreats women to a greater extent than Islamic State in Iraq. To say that a grim future awaited you if you were a Christian or Yazidi woman in a territory invaded by Daesh would be a gross understatement. The United Nations found that Islamic State insurgents carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves and used child soldiers in Iraq. It found gross human rights violations and violence of an increasingly sectarian nature against groups including Christians, Yazidis and Shiite Muslims. Women from the Yazidi and Christian communities were transported to Syria to be given to ISIL fighters as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves. The New York Times reported:

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State … since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution.

…   …   …

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

I, along with the rest of the government, deplore this horrific persecution of women from religious, ethnic and other minority groups, including Christians, Yazidis, Shiite Muslims and others, at the hands of ISIL. We unanimously and wholly condemn the egregious abuses committed by ISIL in Iraq and Syria, including beheadings, sexual exploitation of women and girls, rapes and massacres, and we continue to support all efforts to bring ISIL to justice for its heinous atrocities.

The best, most effective, way to stop ISIL from perpetrating crimes against women is to stop ISIL. We are fully committed. We have made and continue to make a major contribution to the global coalition to defeat ISIL. We are making a significant military contribution. As of 6 August 2017, ISIL has lost over 78 per cent of the territory it once held in Iraq and 58 per cent of the territory it once held in Syria. Nearly five million people have been liberated, and two million Iraqis have returned to their homes. ISIL is losing this war.

But military tactics alone will not be enough. To stop ISIL trading women of Christian, Yazidi and Shiite Muslim faith, or other minority ethnic groups being traded like cattle and sold at auction, we have been working with the coalition to cut off their financing, stem the flow of foreign fighters willing to join them and suppress their pernicious messaging. With the threat of defeat looming, fighters might seek to return to their countries of origin. Sadly, these include Australia. But actions have consequences, and fighters from whichever country they hail from who have chosen to support this group of barbarians will be judged for their atrocities. Anyone fighting with, providing material support to or associating with ISIL or other terrorist groups is committing a serious crime and will be subject to the law.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on this motion moved by my good friend and colleague the member for Canberra, who I know has been a passionate advocate in this space, ably supported, as I have been for many years, by Susan Hutchinson, who has been a wonderful worker in the overall space of peacekeeping and stabilisation issues. In fact, when we established our Asia-Pacific centre for civil-military cooperation, she was also involved in the development of our women, peace and security initiative, which has been so well received in the United Nations and across the globe in UN circles. It really was a reflection of the sorts of issues that we've seen emerging in conflicts in recent times.

It doesn't begin just with the situation in northern Iraq and Syria. I confronted this in my service in Bosnia, where there was a situation of sexual warfare on a massive scale. We don't know the exact figures, but somewhere between 12,000 and 50,000 women were sexually abused, raped and mistreated in what was effectively a systematic policy of warfare in that conflict of extreme ethnic cleansing. Names like Trnopolje, Omarska and Karaman's house are now etched in my mind as examples of the extremes of that circumstance. It was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that helped carry us forward, at least in the legal space on this issue, by designating sexual violence like this as a crime against humanity. And we had the landmark case in 1996 of Dragan Zelenovic, who was convicted of those crimes. That has contributed to our body of work going forward.

But the situation in Iraq and Syria has been absolutely horrendous. Of course, the Yazidi people have been suffering from attacks going way back to the periods of 2007 when al-Qaeda was conducting mass bombing exercises—car bombing, suicide bombing—against that community and causing hundreds of deaths. That went to extreme levels from 2014 onwards. We have heard the stories of people kidnapping women and children and turning them into sexual slaves. The figures are not known completely, but we're talking about upwards of 7,000 women and children in this situation. The circumstances as they've been described are absolutely horrendous. We're talking about ISIS actually having gynaecologists on service to examine women and children to determine whether they were virgins but also if they were pregnant. If they were, they were then subjected to forced abortions being performed on them, in what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Senator John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, determined were crimes of genocide because of the intent that the ISIS forces had at that time to eliminate the entire culture and people of the Yazidi community.

Some of these things don't bear fuller description, but the treating of women and children as cattle in this was the most reprehensible aspect of it. There were values, dollar figures, placed on particular circumstances. For example, a virgin was worth around $10,000 in this trading market. They even utilised the possibilities of social media to facilitate this trading regime. They were using apps like Telegram and WhatsApp and using Facebook to facilitate the marketplace of this horrendous trade in women and girls.

The situation in Iraq and Syria has been something that we haven't seen since Bosnia, but it has taken to a whole new level attempts to justify these actions on a religious basis. The trading of these people—the commerce—is something that defies belief. It really does take us back centuries to the old days of the slave trade. So we have to come to grips with defining what's gone on there as genocide. We have to do that work and join with the rest of the international community in calling this what it was. We also have to look more broadly at the status of women in the Middle East—and, of course, the LGBTI community. We have heard references to the fact that they were also routinely persecuted and executed by ISIS, and we know that in places like the Gaza Strip LGBTI people are routinely executed by the Hamas organisation in that way—by being thrown off roofs et cetera. We also know of the persecution and poor status of women right through that region, including, of course, in Iran, Saudi Arabia and other places where the rights of women are not what we would want them to be.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've all been sickened by the stories of the kidnap, trafficking and sale of women and girls as sex slaves by ISIS. Seeing the courageous survivors tell their stories, it's sickening to see such appalling mental and physical torture. We must seek to find and punish the perpetrators, and we must do all we can for the victims. I believe the government should be commended for its vigour in pursuing this important aim. With the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Act, the government granted the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection the right to strip any dual national who commits these crimes with ISIS of their Australian citizenship. Though it's not always possible to gather proof and extradite offenders from conflict zones, the government will not allow perpetrators of these crimes to return to Australia. We will not permit them to continue to call themselves Australians. We will not count among our number dual citizens who reject everything that we so cherish. We also, with the support of members opposite, passed amendments to the Foreign Evidence Act and other national security legislation which enhance our ability to gather and exploit evidence gathered overseas in trials of returned fighters. These amendments enable evidence received from foreign partners on an agency-to-agency basis to be deployed in prosecutions here in Australia.

The government were among the most vocal supporters of attempts on the UN Security Council to refer the crisis in Syria to the International Criminal Court so we can hold individual fighters to account. We supported a resolution that strongly condemned these sorts of crimes, though both of these actions were vetoed. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs has reported, the government continues to call on the Security Council to involve the International Criminal Court and give strong support to the 'Bringing Daesh to Justice' initiative of Belgium, Iraq and the UK. Ultimately, it is only through international cooperation that we will be able to progress these aims, and that is the path that the Australian government are following. So we are already doing what we can in collaboration with our international partners to bring those Australians who commit crimes in the Middle East to justice. In the case of those who are still actively engaged in armed conflict against our national interests, they live in constant danger. I understand, for example, from media reports that Australian ISIS fighter Khaled Sharrouf was killed in a coalition air strike only last month.

Though it is important to investigate Australians who have committed these crimes and to prosecute them where their involvement is suspected, what is more important is to prevent more of these crimes being committed in the future and to provide support to those who have been victims. To do that, we must destroy ISIS and bring an end to the conflict in the Middle East. We are making considerable progress. The coalition has retaken Mosul and is beginning the work of taking Raqqa. Australia remains a fully committed member of the coalition and under the defence white paper we continue to increase our defence spending to ensure that we have the resources we need to maintain that commitment.

We're also doing what we can to support the victims. In total, our committed humanitarian and stabilisation assistance for both the Syria and Iraq crises since 2011 is over $500 million, while we've committed another $220 million going forward to respond to the Syrian conflict. In Iraq, Australian aid has delivered food and shelter to one million people each month and, in particular, provided access to health services for over 200,000 women. The additional $10 million the government allocated to aid for Mosul's civilians provided food, medical assistance and temporary shelter as well as support to women and girls. Of course, in the final resort, we also have one of the most generous refugee settlement programs in the world and are accepting an extra 12,000 people out of Syria.

Sexual violence, whether in war or in the home, is deeply abhorrent. It is a crime against humanity and an affront to what makes us human beings. We must do what we can to stamp it out and to help those whose lives it blights. I commend the government for its action to date and am confident the foreign minister will continue to make a difference in this vital task in the future.

Debate adjourned.