Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers

Various personnel of the United Nations peacekeeping force are accused of committing large-scale sexual abuse (particularly of children) and related crimes while on duty. An Associated Press (AP) investigation revealed in 2017 that "at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers" from the United Nations (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 (the responsibility for which falls upon the perpetrators' home country as the UN has no direct jurisdiction over peacekeepers). The report further found that over the previous 12 years, there had been almost 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other UN personnel around the world. 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.

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".

Rapid increase in prostitution

Reporters witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Mozambique, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo after UN peacekeeping forces moved in. In the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, NATO peacekeeping forces were also implicated.

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. 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. 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 2010s.

In Haiti, the Sri Lankan peacekeepers wanted girls and boys as young as 12 for sex. "I did not even have breasts," said Victim No. 1. She reported to UN investigators that from the ages of 12 to 15, she had sex with over 40 peacekeepers, including a man called "Commandant" who paid her 75 cents. She stated that she slept in UN trucks on the UN base. At least 134 of these peacekeepers from Sri Lanka operated the child sex ring in which the girl was involved. They lured children with offers of candy and cash, according to the Associated Press report. After a UN report incriminated the peacekeepers, a hundred were sent back to Sri Lanka, but none served any jail time, as it would've been the responsibility of the Sri Lankan 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 have ever been charged, in part due to the large number from countries lacking either advanced judiciaries or robust sexual abuse legislation.

A Kosovo victims support group reported that of the local prostitutes, a third were under 14, and 80% were under 18. Amnesty International said the victims 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.

Canadian government analysis

Internal Canadian government documents reports dated 2016 suggest that the United Nations 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 may be reported. The Toronto Star obtained the memo which reads in part: "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. It documented 69 allegations in 2015 alone. One briefing note obtained by the Star pointed to "unique, structural factors within the UN system" complicated 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.

1996 UN study

In the 1996 UN study The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, former first lady of Mozambique Graça Machel documented: "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."

Eight years later, Gita Sahgal spoke out with regard to the fact that prostitution and sex abuse crops up wherever humanitarian intervention efforts are set up. She observed: "The issue with the UN is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do. Even the guardians have to be guarded." (see "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?")

Involvement in brothels

There was one highly publicised case where members of the UN peacekeeping force were accused of direct involvement in the procurement of sex slaves for a local brothel in Bosnia. The use of agents for procurement and management of brothels has allowed the military to believe itself shielded from the issue of sexual slavery and human trafficking. Some NATO troops and private contractors of the firm DynCorp have been linked to prostitution and forced prostitution in Bosnia and Kosovo, as have some UN employees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they were accused of the sexual abuse of girls.

In 2010, a film, The Whistleblower, directed by Larysa Kondracki, aired on the affair, based on Nebraskan police officer Kathryn Bolkovac, 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.

"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.

Troops in Haiti, Sudan and Central African Republic

See also: Sexual abuse scandal in Haiti

UN troops in Haiti and Sudan have been accused of sexual abuse of children. In 2004–2007, according to an internal UN report, over 100 UN soldiers were sent home for their involvement in a "sex ring", but none were charged. 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.

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. Those personnel have now left the country.