A high-ranking UN official has urged international judges to add sexual crimes charges against rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo on behalf of girls who were coerced to join a Congolese militia.

Lubanga, who was the first person indicted by the International Criminal Court, is due to go on trial at the in The Hague in June. He is accused of enlisting and conscripting children under 15, and using them to participate actively in hostilities during the conflict in the Ituri region in the DRC. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, submitted a written submission to judges advising them on how to interpret the charges against Lubanga. She is recommending that the crime of using children to 'participate actively' in hostilities should be understood to include sexual violence. 'There have been interpretations that (the charge defined as) 'participate actively' should be confined to military activities. We argue that using women as s ex slaves or wives, in a context of war in the DRC, can be meant as using them actively in hostilities,' Coomaraswamy told the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Lubanga, head of the Union of Congolese Patriots, a mainly Hema faction in Ituri in northeastern DRC, stands accused of using children in a period of bloody inter-ethnic fighting against the Lendu ethnic group at the beginning of the decade.
Full report on the Institute for War & Peace Reporting site