UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – More than 60 countries, led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked the United Nations yesterday to appoint a special envoy for a global fight against the rape of women and children during war.

The UN Security Council, chaired by Clinton because the United States holds the revolving presidency, unanimously passed a resolution in a bid to stop sexual violence during conflicts and to end impunity.

“Even though women and children are rarely responsible for initiating armed conflict, they are often war’s most vulnerable and violated victims,” said Clinton, who visited the Democratic Republic of Congo in August and met with rape victims.

“The dehumanizing nature of sexual violence doesn’t just harm a single individual or a single family or even a single village or a single group, it shreds the fabric that weaves us together as human beings,” she said.

Up to half a million women were raped in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, up to 60,000 women were attacked during the Croatia and Bosnia wars and hundreds of thousands of women were subjected to sexual violence amid a long-running conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, says the United Nations.

Rwanda, Croatia and Bosnia are among the more than 60 nations who sponsored the Security Council resolution.