United Nations - violence

'Boys will be boys' in war zones

Thursday 29 May 2008

UN peacekeepers are sexually abusing 'the very children they are meant to protect,' says the British charity Save the Children. And the punishment of the abusers remains, according to the UN, an 'open question.'

Thursday 29 May 2008

By Clea Caulcutt/ France 24

According to a new Save the Children report on child abuse and sex trafficking in war zones, many cases of abuse committed go unreported and perpetrators unpunished.

"Children as young as six are trading sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in exchange for food, money, soap and, in a very few cases, luxury items such as mobile phones," the report says.

“The attitude that ‘boys will be boys’ is still prevalent among UN peacekeepers,” laments Roberta Cohen, a humanitarian expert for the Brookings Institution, commenting on the report.

While both UN agencies and NGOs in the field are guilty of abuse, UN peacekeeping troops were identified as the most likely perpetrators of abuse, according to Save the Children.

“These findings are not surprising,” says Cohen. “Peacekeepers have guns and authority over the people they are supposed to protect and sexual abuse is a recurrent problem with armies.”

According to the UN, the number of cases of reported abuse by UN peacekeeping troops is on the increase. In 2006, there were 368 cases of abuse reported against adults and children, up from 108 in 2004. In 2005, 60 cases of staff having sex with minors were reported against UN troops worldwide.

But the increase may also reflect the UN’s efforts to monitor abuse. “Over the last three and a half years, the UN has been taking this issue very seriously. Each peacekeeping mission now has its own conduct and discipline unit,” UN spokesperson Nick Birnback told FRANCE 24 in a phone interview.

Sex as a survival tactic

Working with over 300 children and adults in Sudan, Haiti and the Ivory Coast, Save the Children found that over 50% of their interviewees reported cases of coerced sex with UN or aid agency workers in their community. According to the charity, coerced sex usually means sex in return for food, protection, or luxury items such as mobile phones. Over 30% of the interviewees also reported incidents of forced sex.

"This research exposes the despicable actions of a small number of perpetrators who are sexually abusing some of the most vulnerable children in the world, the very children they are meant to protect," the charity's chief executive Jasmine Whitbread told the press.

In comparison, statistics released by the UN are very low. According to the British charity, children do not report abuse for fear of reprisals and of losing aid and assistance. “Some children are scared they might be killed by the perpetrator,” a young boy told Save the Children in Haiti.

All levels of the UN peacekeeping hierarchy have been implicated in abuse cases, from guards and drivers to senior managers. Children report their aggressors to be both foreign and local. While the UN maintains a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse, Cohen says neither soldiers in the field nore staff at UN headquarters are taking the issue seriously. “There isn’t the kind of outrage that would lead to action,” she says.

UN training too rushed

“If the UN has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual abuse, why isn’t it being carried out?” asks Cohen.

The issue is not new. During the UN mission to Cambodia in 1992-3, the number of prostitutes rose from 6,000 to 25,000, which included a rise in the number of child prostitutes, according to Cambodian Women's Development Association. More recently, in 2003, Danish and Slovak peacekeepers were expelled from Eritrea for having sex with minors.

Troop training is an issue, and not one the UN always has control over. “The country that sends the troops is in charge of its training,” says Cohen, “The UN gives additional training, but this is either not enough or too rushed.”

But according to UN spokesperson Birnback, peacekeepers receive UN training before and during their deployment, including “training modules on sexual abuse”

According to Save the Children, the overwhelming majority of people interviewed say they would not report a case of abuse. And if the case is reported, there is little guarantee the perpetrator will be punished. It’s up to the country of the offending soldier to follow up on cases of abuse and, according to the Birnback, “whether member states follow up on punitive action against offending troops at the level they should is an open question.”

Photo: An AFP file photo taken 12 October 2003 shows UN special representative to the Democratic Republic of Congo, William Swing, walking around a refugee camp in Bunia during his visit to the area. The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been hit by a long list of alleged scandals since its deployment in 2001, ranging from sex abuse to the trafficking of precious metals.