Sexual Abuse by UN Troops in Congo Still Going On
Reuters
Jan. 7, 2005 - Sexual abuse of girls by U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was serious and was still going on despite the many revelations and probes, the U.N. watchdog agency said in a report on Friday.
The peacekeepers over the last year have been accused of rape, sexual harassment and bribing children, some as young as 12 or 13, into having sex. In many cases the girls are too ashamed to come forward, particularly when they are pregnant, U.N. officials and rights groups have said.
The new report by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services concentrates on Bunia, in the eastern part of the Congo, where the first reports of abuses were revealed last May.
The U.N. watchdog team, one of several U.N. probes looking into the sexual abuse charges, investigated 72 allegations against both military and civilian U.N. personnel, which resulted in 20 case reports. One case involved a U.N. civilian; the others, peacekeepers. They substantiated the allegations in six cases.
Many of the details in the report had been leaked previously but it also criticized the entire peacekeeping operation, known as MONUC, and led by American diplomat William Lacy Swing, as well as the U.N. Peacekeeping Department.
Although MONUC has prepared directives on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, at present, little has been done to implement an effective prevention program in Bunia, the report said.
At present it does not appear that even after the allegations surfaced, the standards of conduct were reinforced with the troops, it said. The problem is serious and ongoing.
And in some instances, commanders of these contingents failed to provide information or actively interfered with the investigation.
The report gave no names of the contingents involved, saying they were blocked from doing so by the peacekeeping department, which wanted individual countries to take action.
Previous allegations included soldiers from Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal.
Among civilians, one French U.N. staffer was prosecuted in France for making pornographic videos of pedophilia and rape.
The United Nations has jurisdiction over its own civilian staff but troops are contributed by individual nations. Consequently, the world body has only the power to demand a specific country repatriate an accused soldier and punish him or her at home.
Jordan's U.N. ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein, who has served in peacekeeping operations, was appointed by Annan as a special adviser on sexual exploitation. One of his tasks is to persuade governments to act on charges against their soldiers.
There are nearly 11,000 military personnel in the Congo to help keep the peace amid a civil war.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has defended the vast majority of U.N. personnel abroad as decent and well-meaning. Some 64,000 military personnel and civilian police are serving in 16 missions around the globe. He has issued new rules that ban staff from paying for sex and having sex with girls younger than 18, among other regulations. 
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