{"id":67929,"date":"2016-04-14T01:17:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T23:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/another-41-allegations-of-peacekeeper-sex-abuse-undisclosed-by-the-un\/"},"modified":"2016-04-14T01:17:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T23:17:30","slug":"another-41-allegations-of-peacekeeper-sex-abuse-undisclosed-by-the-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/another-41-allegations-of-peacekeeper-sex-abuse-undisclosed-by-the-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Another 41 allegations of peacekeeper sex abuse undisclosed by the UN"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK, United States of America, April 13, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

AIDS-Free World (www.AidsFreeWorld.org)\u00a0has received leaked information that\u00a041 additional cases of sexual violence<\/strong>\u00a0by peacekeepers have been documented by MINUSCA, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), following interviews with victims in Dekoa, a remote town in the country\u2019s Kemo prefecture. In an April 7th code cable, MINUSCA informed UN headquarters that an \u201cintegrated team\u201d sent to Dekoa from March 25th to April 4th interviewed 59 women and girls. While some were on a list of 98 victims who reported sexual abuse to UNICEF last month, the team documented 41 new cases never previously reported.<\/p>\n

\n

The code cable to UN headquarters was sent during the visit to CAR of UN Special Coordinator Jane Holl Lute. On April 8th, the mission issued\u00a0<\/span>a video of Ms. Lute<\/a> discussing top priorities (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1gZgeQWbbSs):\u00a0\u201c<\/em>\u2026Third, we have to publicly come forward and say what do we know about this behavior when it occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it occurs? Ms. Lute had the information of these 41 new cases when the video was made. Where is the transparency? It\u2019s quite a commentary on the way in which the UN works when the coordinator becomes the lead dissembler.<\/p>\n

At the daily\u00a0<\/span>press briefing on April 7th<\/a> (http:\/\/www.un.org\/press\/en\/2016\/db160407.doc.htm), the day New York headquarters received the cable, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq told journalists who requested further details regarding over 100 reports of sexual abuse in CAR\u00a0disclosed by Code Blue on March 30, 2016<\/a> (http:\/\/www.codebluecampaign.com\/press-releases\/2016\/3\/30),\u00a0\u201c<\/em>We’ve been providing updates on that in recent days, as you’re aware. \u00a0I don’t have any update for you today, but as we get more information from our peacekeeping and field support counterparts, we’ll certainly relay those on to you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When media pressed the UN for details again this past Monday, April 11<\/span>th,\u00a0Spokesman St\u00e9phane Dujarric said<\/a> (http:\/\/www.un.org\/press\/en\/2016\/db160411.doc.htm), \u201c\u2026we hope to share more details with you as soon as we can.\u00a0Obviously, you know, we\u2019ve had preliminary work done.\u00a0OIOS [the UN\u2019s Office of Internal Oversight Services] will be going there on the ground. The difficulties\u2026 the logistical difficulties in the area also cannot be understated. \u00a0From what I\u2019m told, there\u2019s electricity about two hours a day. \u00a0It\u2019s\u2026 \u00a0The only communications are sat[elite] phones, so the communications with the teams on the ground are a little challenging as well. But we\u2019re trying to harvest as much\u2026 as many numbers as we can for you and to try to bring a little clarity as to where we are on the number of allegations. [\u2026] As to the assessment, I don\u2019t have any more numbers to share with you.\u00a0 I think what I said\u2026 and I hope I said it clearly\u2026 is that OIOS would be sending an expanded team of about 10 people to the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

These exercises in evasion, after the cable had been received, are deeply disappointing. \u00a0It\u2019s clear that the culture of suppression of information is still alive and well at UN headquarters.<\/span><\/p>\n

AIDS-Free World wants to emphasize that many critical details are not in our possession. Only the UN can provide them. How many times have the same women and girls been interviewed, knowing the trauma that is induced by repetitive interviewing? What legal basis does the UN have to conduct these interviews? Of what, exactly, does any psycho-social counselling and medical assistance consist? How many of the women and girls so far interviewed once, twice, or three times by UN staff have received what Ms. Lute describes as \u201cemergency\u201d assistance? Have the local police authorities been informed? To what extent are they involved in the investigation of these criminal acts?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MINUSCA\u2019s April 7, 2016 code cable to headquarters (which our sources quoted, but did not send to us in its original form) stated that the team was deployed \u201cto carry out a prel[iminary] investigation into allegation of sexual violence by UN and non-UN international military forces\u201d and was composed of personnel from MINUSCA\u2019s human rights division, UNFPA (the Population Fund), UNICEF (the UN Children\u2019s Fund) and UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency). The \u2018integrated team\u2019 did not include professional investigators from the UN\u2019s independent Office of Internal Oversight Services.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If the UN, which is not authorized to conduct criminal investigations, is sending \u201cintegrated teams\u201d and OIOS investigators to interview victims and witnesses, gather information and preserve evidence, are they acting alone, or in conjunction with\u2014and at the request of\u2014authorized law enforcement personnel from France, Gabon, Burundi, and any other governments whose troops have been identified so far?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Details provided in the April 7<\/span>th cable: \u00a0<\/p>\n

All of the alleged victims were women and girls.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

…allegations show that food, including rations, and money was exchanged for sex, often with promises of marriage.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

…numerous allegations of rapes \u2013 when victims went to collect water or when they approached international forces to sell fruit (a pattern of raping closely reminiscent of Darfur)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

…justice system in Dekoa is nonexistent.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Code Blue campaign sees the UN\u2019s ad hoc responses to ever-growing reports of sexual violence as improvised and dangerously unprofessional. Droves of women and girls who\u2019ve come forward in the past month are being subjected to a chaotic grab-bag of bits and pieces of UN activities, slapped together by the MINUSCA mission without adequate headquarters leadership or oversight, thought, planning, protocols, guidelines, or clear channels of communication.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the UN\u2019s intentions, the organization may well be compounding victims\u2019 trauma irreversibly through this round-robin of \u201cpreliminary\u201d interviews, conducted over and over again, and with no real justice, protection, or support in sight.<\/p>\n

With every new piece of sordid information it becomes clear that the UN itself is clearly unable to handle sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations. There is no plan, and there is absolutely no leadership. We are persuaded that the only answer is to take management of sexual exploitation and abuse reports out of the hands of the United Nations Secretariat entirely, and place it in the hands of an external, expert oversight panel, chosen from and responsible to the Member States. When the panel, over the course of two to three years, working in real time, has cleaned up the morass of sexual exploitation and abuse, in every particular, then and only then can the responsibility be returned to the UN.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK, United States of America, April 13, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — AIDS-Free World (www.AidsFreeWorld.org)\u00a0has received leaked information that\u00a041 additional cases of sexual violence\u00a0by peacekeepers have been documented by MINUSCA, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), following interviews with victims in Dekoa, a remote town in the country\u2019s Kemo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-67929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}