A/HRC/45/CRP.7 (e) Victim Impact 228. Survivors of gender-based violence sustained severe physical and mental trauma, including long-term injuries to genitals and internal organs. This further compounded the effects of endemic discrimination, inequality, marginalisation, existing trauma and mental health issues. 229. Stigma for Yemeni and Ethiopian gender-based violence survivors and their families was a serious concern for survivors. Disclosing sexual violence or even just the fact that they have been detained, risks them being ostracised and re-victimised by their families and communities. In many cases, survivors have been unable to disclose the violence to anyone due to stigma and fear of reprisal. Many survivors were children or young people with no previous experience of sexual intercourse. This violence was profoundly disturbing and scarring, with long-term consequences for their life prospects. The continued use of sexual violence, detention, and accusations of immorality, prostitution, homosexuality and enemy affiliation, risk social exclusion, community violence and long-term harm. 230. Survivors told the Group how they had been unable to access life-saving protection and psychosocial support due to fear of reprisal, stigma, and lack of safe access to services. This is likely to become more acute with COVID-19 measures hindering victims’ movement. Furthermore, since early 2020, due to a funding shortfall, United Nations partners in Yemen have suspended specialised protection programmes for 500,000 at-risk women and girls.334 There is no specialised protection programming for male survivors of gender-based violence or persons with non-conforming SOGI. 231. An overriding demand from all gender-based violence survivors was for protection for them, their families and others at-risk to be able to live safely without fear of further violence. Some survivors were clear that justice meant punitive sanctions against perpetrators commensurate with the violence they had perpetrated against them. 232. Since the Group of Experts’ 2019 report, the Government of Yemen armed forces 35th Armoured Brigade engaged with the Group in the light of sexual violence violations identified as committed by members of these forces. In one such case, steps were taken by these forces and the public prosecutor to attempt to prosecute alleged perpetrators. However, apart from this, the Group did not receive any information indicating that the gender-based violence violations identified in its 2019 report, or their underlying causes, have been meaningfully investigated and addressed by the parties identified as responsible. 233. Survivors have also called for financial and rehabilitative reparations, noting that while it could never fully compensate them, it would go some way towards helping them rebuild their and their family’s lives. Legal findings 234. The Group concludes that parties to the conflict, in particular the Government of Yemen, the Houthis and the Security Belt forces, continue to commit acts of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, in contravention of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Other forms of gender-based violence include the targeting of individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics and in subjecting them, inter alia, to arbitrary detention, torture and cruel and inhuman treatment and in restricting their fundamental freedoms. Rape and other forms of sexual violence, cruel treatment and torture and committing outrages upon personal dignity constitute war crimes. F. Child recruitment and use and related violations Applicable law 334 OCHA Humanitarian Response Plan June-December 2020, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-response-plan-extension-june-december-2020enar 62