New York - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presided Thursday over a UN Security Council session on issues of sexual violence against women in armed conflict, which has become more widespread since the body began adopting measures against it eight years ago.

Rice cited rapes of girls as young as 8-years-old in Myanmar and the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who celebrated her birthday Thursday under house arrest. Military authorities in Yangon arrested her supporters who showed up to cheer her birthday.

She cited the severe lack of women in the decision-making hierarchy at the United Nations, where only six women had occupied the rank of assistant secretary general or above, including in peacekeeping operations.

"We are concerned about the issue of violence against women around the world, in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan," she said. "We have the special responsibility to punish perpetrators of sexual violence."

She called for measures against UN peacekeepers charged with sexual misconducts.

The United States called for the meeting as it holds in June the rotating presidency of the 15-nation council, over which Rice was presiding. It said sexual violence has become a security issue.

In a prepared document, the US said sexual violence against women and girls has become more widespread since the year 2000 when the council began taking measures against it. It said since UN tribunals were set up 15 years ago to prosecute genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, "widespread, organized and systematic rape has continued and, if anything, has become more severe."

Since 2000, "sexual violence as a weapon of war has been perpetrated with almost universal impunity," the document said.

It said more than 32,000 cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence were registered in Congo's South Kivu province alone during the recent conflict. Some UN peacekeepers based in Kivu had been accused of sexual misconducts and discharged from the UN mission. (dpa)