Sex abuse charges haunt UN peacekeepers
Almost two decades after the first allegations of sexual abuse were leveled against UN peacekeepers, it is unfortunate that the world body has still not been able to contain the problem. Between 2008 and 2013, at least 480 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse had been made, of which at least one-third involved children, according to a draft report prepared by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. UN peacekeepers reportedly bartered a variety of goods, from essential food items to cell phones and perfumes, and sometimes gave cash, for sexual favours from locals. The full account is expected to come out later this month but, for now, we know that the UN missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, liberia, Haiti and South Sudan account for the largest numbers of accusations. We also know that UN investigators believe that the matter is grossly under-reported and victims across the board receive little to no support.
Offending peacekeepers, of many nationalities including India (one of the top three troop contributors to UN missions) are rarely held accountable. Such a gross miscarriage of justice, stemming from widespread abuse of power, significantly undercuts the otherwise good work that the UN has been doing in some of the world's most dangerous and hostile regions. The UN currently has more than 1,25,000 soldiers, police personnel and civilians deployed in 16 peacekeeping operations around the world. The primary responsibility of these peacekeepers is to shield civilians from being slaughtered by warring parties during bloody civil wars and violent insurgencies. When they prey upon the weakest of those that they are duty-bound to protect, it is not an ordinary crime but an injustice on an altogether different scale. Also, this is not just about a few errant troopers or one bad regiment.
This is a problem that spans UN missions and personnel across continents and over decades. It was in 1996 that the United Nations Children's Fund first reported that the arrival of peacekeeping troops saw a rapid increase in sexual abuse and prostitution. In 2004, a review study came to the same conclusions. last year, another internal UN investigation detailed allegations of how French troops in Central African Republic sexually abused children as young as nine years old. But the world body did not act upon that report, which was later leaked to French authorities by a UN worker, who has since been suspended.
This institutional failure of the UN, to address the issue in any meaningful way, is what makes matters worse. Peacekeepers have blanket immunity from local prosecution (though this can be waived by the UN) and the UN itself has no judicial authority. The accused can only be tried in their home country, usually in military courts, where, expectedly, they are rarely convicted. Notably, though in 2012, the Indian Army indicted four personnel, including a Major, for sexually exploiting Congolese women during their deployment in 2007-08.