Committee on Sexual Violence in Conflict hears from Black Rod

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• Sexual Violence in Conflict Committee

Witnesses

Tuesday 27 October in Committee Room 3, Palace of Westminster

At 5.00pm:

• Lieutenant-General (retired) David Leakey, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod

Background

General Leakey previously served as the UK military representative at the Bosnia peace negotiations in Dayton. He also commanded the European Union rapid reaction force deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Peace Accord.

Possible questions

Areas of discussion included the role of the military in preventing sexual violence in conflict, negotiating the peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and his experience leading the EU forces that oversaw the peace agreement.

Questions the Committee put to Black Rod included:

• At what point in your long military career did the issue of sexual violence in conflict begin to be raised?
• Why where civil society representatives or women's representatives not included among the negotiators at the Dayton Peace summit?
• Why was sexual violence used so extensively by paramilitary groups during the Bosnian conflict?
• When you returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina as commander of an EU rapid reaction force was there more the EU could have done to prevent sexual violence?
• Does the military have a role in post conflict societies in determining the balance between preventing further conflict and bringing the perpetrators of previous sexual violence to justice?

Further information

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