Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers

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Various personnel of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force are accused of committing large-scale sexual abuse, frequently of children, and related crimes while on duty. [1] [2] An Associated Press (AP) investigation revealed in 2017 that "at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers" from the UN were involved in a child sex ring in Haiti over a 10-year period and that although 114 of them were sent home, none were charged for the crimes. [3]

Contents

The AP further found that over the 12 years before 2017, there had been almost 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other UN personnel around the world. [4] These crimes occurred among personnel from and in many different countries. After the report, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, urged all countries to hold their UN peacekeepers accountable for any sexual abuse or exploitation. [5] The responsibility for such charges falls upon the perpetrators' home countries as the UN has no direct jurisdiction over peacekeepers; the only punitive measures available to the organization directly are repatriation and banning from future missions. Few of the accusees in mass-scale events are ever charged with any crime, in significant part due to the large number of accused peacekeepers from countries lacking advanced legal systems or robust sexual abuse legislation.

As early as 2004, Amnesty International reported that underage girls were being kidnapped, tortured, and forced into prostitution in Kosovo with UN and NATO personnel driving demand. The UN's department of peacekeeping in New York acknowledged at that time that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the problem in trafficking rather than the solution". [6] Until the 2000s, the UN did not keep detailed statistics concerning such incidents. In 2015, the UN started disclosing more figures about thousands of allegations of forced sex with UN soldiers in exchange for material aid, of which hundreds involved minors. [7]

The scope of the problem is worldwide. A UN report in 2016 cited 21 countries that had 69 credible reports of incidents from the previous year alone, though the Canadian press has indicated that such numbers are vast undercounts due to the lack of obvious figures of authority over such foreign national troops and lopsided power dynamics within war-stricken countries. This article focuses on locations of large clusters involving many specific or egregious cases for which there exists confirmed documentation, including Haiti, Sudan, Central African Republic, Cambodia, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Sexual abuse by UN personnel

UN troops in the Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Central African Republic have been accused of sexual abuse of women, men, and often children. [8]

After a process concluding in 2005, UN employees were accused of sexual abuse of a "significant number" of women and girls, many under 18 and some as young as 13, in the DRC. [9] There were over 70 allegations against 7 different men, "all but one of them peacekeepers". Unusually, one of the accused men faced charges upon repatriation as he came from France where the legal system follows up on such offences.

In the Central African Republic (formerly known as Ubangi-Shari), at least 98 girls said they had been sexually abused by UN peacekeepers from Burundi and Gabon in 2014 and 2015. The UN successfully identified 41 troops accused of involvement in the incidents, which included forced acts of bestiality. The personnel identified were returned to their homelands but have not faced charges. [10] [11]

Forced prostitution and exploitation by UN personnel

In addition to those countries mentioned in the previous section, reporters and internal observers witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Mozambique, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo after UN peacekeeping forces moved in.

Instances of abuse during the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) mission caused widespread outrage after many of the abused women and girls ended up contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) that were uncommon among the local population at the time. [12] In an attempt to quell the outbreak of HIV/AIDS and other STIs, the UN shipped over 800,000 condoms to the country over the course of the mission. Meanwhile, the number of prostitutes in Cambodia rose by at least 300% from an estimated 6000 to more than 25,000 in just two years. [13] The legacy of UNTAC is still experienced within Cambodian society by many of the children born to abuse victims who feel like outsiders in their own country due to their frequently darker skin tone and obvious mixed-race parentage. During UNTAC (1992-93), the UN did not keep thorough records of abuse allegations against peacekeepers, so the numbers involved from these earlier missions have necessarily been reconstructed through academic work and are less precise than in, for example, Haiti during the 2000s. [14]

In Haiti, between 2004 and 2007, at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers operated a child sex ring involving at least 9 confirmed children. According to incident reports, they wanted both girls and boys as young as 12 for sex. "I did not even have breasts", one anonymous girl claimed in her statement. She relayed to UN investigators that from the ages of 12 to 15, she been raped by over 40 peacekeepers, including a man known as "Commandant", who paid her 75 cents. She stated that she spent that time sleeping in UN trucks on the UN base itself. According to the Associated Press article that made the events public, they lured children with offers of candy and cash. After an internal UN report incriminated the peacekeepers, some remained in the country while 114 were sent back to Sri Lanka, but none served any jail time, as it would've been the responsibility of their local judicial system to bring forth and prosecute any charges. Despite the responsibility falling upon the peacekeepers' native countries to try those involved in sex abuse and exploitation, few of the accusees in these mass-scale cases have ever been charged, in part due to the large number of peacekeepers from countries lacking either advanced judiciaries or robust sexual abuse legislation. [4] [15]

A Kosovo victims support group reported that of the prostitutes in their local area, a third were under 14 and 80% were under 18. Amnesty International said that some victims of forced prostitution were routinely raped "as a means of control and coercion" and kept in terrible conditions as slaves by their "owners", sometimes in darkened rooms from which they were unable to leave. [6] [16] [17] In Bosnia, there was a highly publicised case concerning the direct involvement of UN peacekeeping personnel in the procurement of sex slaves for a local brothel. [18] Some NATO troops and private contractors of the firm DynCorp have been linked to prostitution and forced prostitution in Bosnia and Kosovo, though the extent of the involvement of particularly NATO in comparison to the private firms and UN itself has been debated. [19]

In 1996, it was determined that fully half of peacekeeping missions are correlated with a "rapid rise in child prostitution" in their respective countries.

1996 UN study

In the 1996 UN study The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, former first lady of Mozambique Graça Machel concluded: "In 6 out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children in situations of armed conflict prepared for the present report, the arrival of peacekeeping troops has been associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution." [17]

Eight years later, Indian-born feminist Gita Sahgal again raised the issue of the relationship between supposed humanitarian intervention and the prostitution and sex abuse that frequently follows. She observed that "the issue with the UN is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do." She concluded that "even the guardians have to be guarded", [20] recalling the philosophical issue and rhetorical question of quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("who watches the watchers?").

Canadian government analysis

Internal Canadian government documents from 2016 suggest that the UN has "glaring gaps" in its procedures for tracking and prosecuting peacekeepers accused of exploitation and sexual abuse, and that only a small fraction of cases are likely to be reported. The Toronto Star obtained the memo, which contains the claim that "Events in [the Central African Republic] and the data coming out of the [Secretary General's 2016] annual report point to a system that is lacking in efficiency, transparency and coherency." The memo goes on to say:

"Part of the answer to these deficiencies lies in establishing enduring, system-wide structures but the nature of UN governance makes this a challenging endeavor. In addition, as we continue to unpack how member states themselves can better approach this issue from pre-deployment training to punishing perpetrators to victims’ assistance, there must also be a greater willingness by individual countries to examine and address internal shortfalls."

In 2016, a UN report named 21 countries that had 69 credible reports of incidents in 2015. One briefing note obtained by the Star claimed that "unique, structural factors within the UN system" made harder their goals of greater transparency and enforcement. "Although military personnel are covered by military codes of conduct and justice systems, UN police and civilian staff accused of [sexual exploitation and abuse] in the field may face only minor disciplinary measures, such as repatriation and being barred from future deployments," the unclassified document reads. [21]

"Actions of a few"

In the 2000s, proponents of peacekeeping argued that the actions of a minority of the peacekeeping force should not be allowed to tarnish what they perceived as necessary work by the majority of participants in such UN missions. Others have criticized the UN over its apparent failure to take the issue seriously enough. As many more incidents have come to light in the decade since the original defences were written, commentators and organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) have suggested that the problem now extends beyond the "actions of a few", with HRW highlighting that other major supranational organizations involved in these missions have the same problems, including the African Union. [6] [22] [23]

In 2010, a film, The Whistleblower , directed by Larysa Kondracki, aired on the affair, based on Nebraskan police officer Kathryn Bolkovac, [24] who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and outed the U.N. for covering up the sex scandal. The film featured Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave, and many others. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peacekeeping</span> Activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace

Peacekeeping comprises activities, especially military ones, intended to create conditions that favor lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti</span> 2004–2017 United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti

The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of its French name, was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. It was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police, supported by international civilian personnel, a local civilian staff, and United Nations Volunteers. The mission's military component was led by the Brazilian Army and commanded by a Brazilian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia</span> UN peacekeeping mission to implement Cambodian-Vietnamese peace

The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia in 1992–93 formed following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords. This was the first occasion in which the UN directly assumed responsibility for the administration of an outright independent state, rather than simply monitoring or supervising the area. The UN transitional authority organized and ran elections, had its own radio station and jail, and was responsible for promoting and safeguarding human rights at the national level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations peacekeeping missions involving Pakistan</span>

Pakistan has served in 46 United Nations peacekeeping missions in 29 countries around the world. As of 2023, United Nations (UN) statistics show that 168 Pakistani UN peacekeepers have been killed since 1948. The biggest Pakistani loss occurred on 5 June 1993 in Mogadishu. Pakistan joined the United Nations on 30 September 1947, despite opposition from Afghanistan because of the Durand Line issue. The Pakistan Armed Forces are the fifth largest contributor of troops towards UN peacekeeping efforts, behind India and Rwanda.

The United Nations Peacekeeping efforts began in 1948. Its first activity was in the Middle East to observe and maintain the ceasefire during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have taken part in a total of 72 missions around the globe, 12 of which continue today. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force</span>

The Bangladesh Armed Forces and the Bangladesh Police have been actively involved in a number of United Nations Peace Support Operations (UNPSO) since 1988. As of 2024, Bangladesh is the largest contributor in the UN peacekeeping missions.

Peacekeeping by the United Nations is a role of the UN's Department of Peace Operations as an "instrument developed by the organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace". It is distinguished from peacebuilding, peacemaking, and peace enforcement although the United Nations does acknowledge that all activities are "mutually reinforcing" and that overlap between them is frequent in practice.

Prostitution in Haiti, although illegal, continues to be a widespread problem for the country, particularly in the form of street prostitution, as well as in bars, hotels and brothels. UNAIDS estimate there to be 70,000 prostitutes in the country. Law enforcement is generally lax.

Sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian response first came to public attention with the release of a report in February 2002 of a joint assessment mission examining the issue. The joint mission reported that "refugee children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation, reportedly by employees of national and international NGOs, UNHCR and other UN bodies..." Humanitarian agencies responded almost immediately with measures designed to prevent further abuse, setting up an inter-agency task force with the objective of "strengthening and enhancing the protection and care of women and children in situations of humanitarian crisis and conflict..." In 2008 there were signs that sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries not only continued, but was under-reported. In January 2010, the ECHA/ECPS task force developed a website devoted to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) by personnel of the United Nations (UN), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other international organizations.

Prostitution in Cambodia is illegal, but prevalent. A 2008 Cambodian Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation has proven controversial, with international concerns regarding human rights abuses resulting from it, such as outlined in the 2010 Human Rights Watch report.

Prostitution in Eritrea is legal and regulated. Official figures state there are around 2,000 prostitutes in the country, who are not allowed to operate near schools, hospitals, and churches. According to the 2009 Human Rights Reports, security forces occasionally follow women engaged in prostitution and arrest those who had spent the night with a foreigner. Some women enter prostitution due to poverty. Prostitutes are known locally as "shermuta" in Arabic, or "mnzerma" and "me'amn" in Tigrinya.

Prostitution in Kosovo is illegal, and can incur a prison sentence of up to sixty days. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria's HIV Program in Kosovo estimated there to be 5,037 prostitutes in the country. Many women turn to prostitution through poverty.

Kathryn Bolkovac is a human rights advocate, consultant, former police investigator with the Lincoln Police Department, and former monitor with United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She came to prominence when she sued her employers for unfair dismissal after she lost her job following her attempts to expose sex trafficking in Bosnia. Her story was shown in the film The Whistleblower and told in the nonfiction book, The Whistleblower.

In 2009, Fiji was a source country for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution within the country, as well as a destination country for women from China in forced prostitution. Family members, other Fijian citizens, foreign tourists, and sailors on foreign fishing vessels participated in the commercial sexual exploitation of Fijian children. Staff at smaller, local hotels procured underaged girls and boys for commercial sexual exploitation by foreign guests, while taxi drivers, nightclub employees, and relatives frequently acted as prostitution facilitators. NGO's report caring for child victims of prostitution who claim facilitators took them to private boats anchored offshore near Fiji where they were sexually abused or raped by foreign adult men. Reports indicated that some transnational traffickers were members of Chinese organized crime groups that recruited women from China and arrange for them to enter Fiji on tourist or student visas. After their arrival, brothel owners confiscated their passports and forced the women to engage in prostitution. Some Fijian children whose families follow a traditional practice of sending children to live with and do light work for relatives or families living in cities or near schools became trafficking victims. These children were subjected to involuntary domestic servitude or were coerced to engage in sexual activity in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, or school fees.

Prostitution in Mozambique is legal and widely practiced, and the country also contains illegal brothels. The majority of the population remains below the poverty line, a situation which provides fertile soil for the development of prostitution. In Mozambique, as in many poor countries, the government is responsible for monitoring sex workers, and data on the number of prostitutes in Mozambique is not available. UNAIDS estimate there to be 13,554 prostitutes in the country.

The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti ("MINUSTAH") was tainted by multiple scandals involving U.N. personnel engaged in sexual exploitation or abuse of Haitians, including Haitian children. Most prominent of these was a child sexual abuse scandal involving the Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers, which emerged in 2007 following an investigation by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). At least 134 Sri Lankan soldiers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti were accused of sexually abusing nine Haitian children from 2004 to 2007.

Prostitution in the Central African Republic is legal and commonplace. Procuring or profiting off the prostitution of others is illegal, as is coercing people into prostitution. Punishment is a fine and up to one year in prison, or 5 years if the case involves a minor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MINUSCA</span> United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic

United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic is a UN peacekeeping mission, which started on April 10, 2014, to protect Central African Republic civilians under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. It transformed the 6,000-strong African Union-led peacekeeping force known as MISCA into a UN peacekeeping mission and became operational on September 15, 2014. The UN deployed a transition team to set up MINUSCA and prepare for a seamless transition of authority from MISCA to MINUSCA. As of 30 September 2021, it has more than 15,000 troops, police and civilian personnel on the ground. Its role is to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic</span>

The United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic, more commonly known as MINURCA was a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic. The 1350-troop mission was established by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1159 in March 1998. It was replaced in 2000 after the Central African Republic conducted two peaceful elections, with the entirely civilian composed UN Peace-Building Support Office in the Central African Republic (BONUCA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex trafficking in East Timor</span>

Sex trafficking in East Timor is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.

References

  1. ↑ "UN Peacekeeping has a Sexual Abuse Problem". Human Rights Watch. 11 January 2020.
  2. ↑ "CAR: Fresh evidence UN peacekeepers drugged and raped young woman". Amnesty international . Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  3. ↑ "AP Investigation: UN troops lured kids into Haiti sex ring". Associated Press News . 12 April 2017.
  4. 1 2 Dodds, Paisley (12 April 2017). "More than 100 UN peacekeepers ran a child sex ring in Haiti. None were ever jailed". Toronto Star. AP. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
  5. ↑ "U.S: U.N. Peacekeepers must be punished for sexual abuse". Time. 13 April 2017. Archived from the original on 14 April 2017. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 Traynor, Ian (7 May 2004). "Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
  7. ↑ "AP Exclusive: UN child sex ring left victims but no arrests". AP NEWS. 12 April 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  8. ↑ Williams, Mike (30 November 2006). "Fears over Haiti child 'abuse'". BBC News. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  9. ↑ Price, Susannah (8 January 2005). "DR Congo sex abuse claims upheld". BBC News. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
  10. ↑ Nichols, Michelle (5 December 2016). "U.N. identifies 41 Burundi, Gabon troops accused of abuse in Central Africa". Reuters. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  11. ↑ Oakford, Samuel (31 March 2016). "French Peacekeepers Allegedly Tied Up Girls and Forced Them Into Bestiality". VICE News. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  12. ↑ Naraghi, Sanam (June 2017). "UN Peacekeepers' Sexual Assault Problem". Foreign Affairs. – via Foreign Affairs (subscription required)
  13. ↑ https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/93/2/365/2982811
  14. ↑ "Her Name is Untac: UN Peacekeepers' Forgotten Children in Cambodia". 26 October 2021.
  15. ↑ Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (14 April 2017). "U.N. Peacekeepers Ran a Child Sex Ring in Haiti". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  16. ↑ "Document - Kosovo (Serbia and Montenegro): "So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo". Amnesty International. Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
  17. 1 2 United Nations (26 August 1996). "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children" (PDF). UNICEF. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  18. ↑ Vulliamy, Ed (15 January 2012). "Has the UN learned lessons of Bosnian sex slavery revealed in Rachel Weisz film?". The Observer. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  19. ↑ Loconte, Joseph (3 January 2005). "The U.N. Sex Scandal". The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on 9 December 2020. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
  20. ↑ Jordan, Michael J. (26 November 2004). "Sex charges haunt UN forces; In places like Congo and Kosovo, peacekeepers have been accused of abusing the people they're protecting". The Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  21. ↑ Boutilier, Alex (14 January 2017). "UN peacekeeping has 'glaring' accountability gaps, documents show". Toronto Star . Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  22. ↑ Ahmetasevic, Nidzara (6 September 2005). "Bosnia: Sex Slave Recounts Her Ordeal". Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Archived from the original on 21 August 2010. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  23. ↑ "UN Peacekeeping has a Sexual Abuse Problem | Human Rights Watch". 11 January 2020.
  24. ↑ "Kathryn Bolkovac". Kathryn Bolkovac. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011. Retrieved 6 May 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  25. ↑ "The Whistleblower". IMDb .

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