S/2017/249 Recommendation 18. I urge the Government to reinforce the capacity of its justice system to provide accountability and remedies for sexual violence crimes, to allocate adequate resources for the implementation of its national action plan on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and to adopt legislation to criminalize bachah bazi. Central African Republic 19. In early 2016, a new Government was democratically elected in the Central African Republic, yet the security situation remained volatile across large swaths of the country. Several prefectures were shaken by clashes in the second half of the year, leading to the displacement of thousands of civilians and a pattern of conflict related sexual violence of an ethnic and sectarian nature. During the reporting period, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) recorded 179 cases of conflict -related sexual violence committed primarily by ex-Séléka, anti-balaka and Révolution et Justice elements and by the Lord’s Resistance Army. These incidents included 151 rapes, of which 54 were gang rapes, as well as six forced marriages and four cases of sexual slavery. The victims included 92 women, 86 girls and one bo y, although the actual number is suspected to be far higher than the figures reported. 20. Victims of conflict-related sexual violence were generally assaulted in their homes, en route to markets or fields, and in and around displacement camps. Most incidents took place in the course of essential livelihood activities, such as farming or firewood collection. Sexual violence also occurred in the context of intercommunal clashes aimed at humiliating or punishing the target population, as well as against women suspected of engaging in trade across the sectarian divide. In Ouham -Pendé, where conflict intensified in 2016, 14 cases of sexual violence were committed by ex-Séléka and Révolution et Justice elements, as well as by anti-balaka forces, against victims ranging from 14 to 40 years. In Kaga Bandoro, several cases of sexual violence, including gang rapes, were allegedly committed by armed Fulani herders during clashes on 12 October. At least 25 per cent of the 1,685 cases of sexual violence recorded countrywide by humanitarian agencies occurred in Kaga Bandoro, where women reported that sexual violence was being used by ex -Séléka elements to demean and destabilize communities. In mid-2016 in Ngaounday, armed elements, reportedly from Chad, raped 19 women and girls in a single night during attacks on several villages. The Lord’s Resistance Army continued its decade-old pattern of abduction, rape, forced marriage, forced impregnation and sexual slavery. Cases of conflict-related sexual violence committed by members of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, which are based in Obo as part of operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army, were also documented in 2016. 21. Children conceived as a result of rape are rarely accepted by society. A large number of rape victims resort to unsafe abortion, which is the leading cause of maternal mortality. In Yalinga, a woman who had been raped by the Lord’s Resistance Army reported that she was rejected and forced to leave her family once her child was born. In Obo, three children born of rapes by Lord’s Resistance Army commanders and their mothers were subjected to discrimination. The community dubbed these children tonkotonko, a local term for the Lord’s Resistance Army. However, according to their mothers, the prejudice dimi nished over time. 8/33 17-05090