UN Peacekeepers In The Spotlight

Responding to reports in the Telegraph, the UN has admitted that it has investigated 319 individuals in the past three years over abuse allegations. Most of these involved sexual abuse in one form or another. To their credit they are at least acknowledging there is a problem. The question is, are they realistically doing enough to guard against it?

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jane Holl Lute said Friday that the U.N. has done more in the last two years than ever before to try to combat sex abuse in its 16 peacekeeping missions "but we're not satisfied with where we are."

With nearly 200,000 people from more than 100 countries rotating through the peacekeeping missions every year, some people "are going to behave badly," she told a news conference. "What's different now is … our determination to stay with this problem … and constantly improve our ability to deal with it."

Between January 2004 and the end of November 2006, Lute said, the U.N. investigated allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving 319 peacekeeping personnel "in all missions" — from East Timor, the Middle East and Africa to Kosovo and Haiti.

This resulted in the summary dismissal of 18 civilians and the repatriation of 17 international police and 144 military personnel, she said.

According to the Department of Peacekeeping, during the first 10 months of 2006, 63 percent of all misconduct allegations involving peacekeeping personnel were related to sexual exploitation and abuse, a third of them to prostitution.

While allegations of abuse have dogged peacekeeping missions since their inception more than 50 years ago, the issue was thrust into the spotlight after the United Nations found in early 2005 that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Jordan's U.N. Ambassador Prince Zeid al Hussein wrote a report several months later that described the U.N. military arm as deeply flawed and recommended withholding the salaries of the guilty and requiring nations to pursue legal action against perpetrators. It said abuses had been reported in missions ranging from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo.

To be honest about this, some of the nations contributing peacekeepers have, to put it delicately, less than stellar human rights records to begin with. Putting some of these soldiers into missions to some of the hellholes the UN is trying to help in is asking for trouble.