A/HRC/43/76 regarding this critical situation, and a team of local doctors, mandated by the country humanitarian country team, had been deployed to the village on 29 June and had provided medical assistance to more than 60 villagers. 45. The Independent Expert acknowledges that intercommunal violence has occurred for several centuries, but its magnitude and ferocity in recent years are unprecedented. On 3 August 2019, a 25-year-old man from the Fulani community disappeared after he left his village in Mopti region to search for his family’s livestock in the nearby forest. On 7 August 2019, a photo published on social media showed several men, including two dressed as traditional hunters, posing with the man’s head, hands and feet. 46. The Independent Expert wishes to point out that various initiatives have been taken by the Malian authorities. He learned that three municipal and district reconciliation committees had been set up in Mopti region and that the regional reconciliation committee in Segou had been strengthened. 47. The Independent Expert was informed that cessation-of-hostilities agreements had been signed in the presence of the Prime Minister by some 10 armed Fulani and Dogon groups from the centre of the country in early August 2019. The groups had pledged to put an immediate and definitive end to the hostilities and to make every effort to facilitate the free movement of persons, goods and humanitarian agencies. The Prime Minister’s second tour of the centre of the country in two months demonstrated the political will to put an end to the relentless violence that had been going on for months. The signing of the agreements marked the culmination of a 10-month-long process conducted under the aegis of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. C. The situation of women 48. The Independent Expert emphasizes that the situation of women and girls in Mali remains a cause of concern. As noted in his previous reports, none of the perpetrators of the conflict-related sexual violence reported since 2014 has yet been brought to justice. Of 130 complaints filed in 2014 by a coalition of six non-governmental victims’ rights organizations, to date only 37 have been heard by a judge. 49. The Monitoring Committee for the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, which is composed of members of the Government and the signatory movements and does not include a single woman, established a working group in December 2018 to identify specific options for increasing women’s participation in the peace process. 50. The Independent Expert welcomes the introduction of measures to promote gender equality in access to appointed and elected office through the adoption in 2015 of Act No. 2015-052, which sets a 30-per-cent quota for women and requires that at least one out of every three candidates on the lists of candidates for local elections must be a woman. However, the quota is not fully complied with, since only 9 of the 36 ministers in the Government are women. 51. The Independent Expert regrets that Mali has not adopted a law to combat genderbased violence, a recommendation that it accepted during its universal periodic review in January 2018. However, the Independent Expert notes that a bill was submitted to the Minister for the Advancement of Women and the Minister of Justice in July 2017. 52. The Independent Expert is pleased to note that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict visited Mali from 25 February to 1 March 2019. The visit culminated in the signing of a joint communiqué on the prevention of and response to conflict-related sexual violence in Mali. D. The situation of children 53. The Independent Expert has repeatedly expressed his concern about the disproportionate impact and devastating consequences of the armed conflict in Mali on children. On 7 May 2019, suspected members of violent extremist groups in two pick-up GE.20-00529 11