FN's problem i CAR
De seneste 14 måneder er ikke mindre end 22 sager om seksuelle overgreb og udnyttelse blevet rapporteret fra FN-missionen i den Centralafrikanske Republik. Senest er det en sag om fredsbevarende styrker, der har betalt helt ned til 3 kroner for seksuelle ydelser fra bl.a. mindreårige piger fra en flygtningelejr lidt udenfor hovedstaden Bangui. Hvorfor er det så svært for verdensorganisationen at få sat stop for overgrebene? Sarah Taylor fra Humans Rights Watch forklarer
Interview af Maanvi Singh, NPR
Investigators discovered this month that United Nations
peacekeepers in the Central African Republic were paying girls at a
camp for the internally displaced less than a dollar for sex. It's
the latest of several such incidents plaguing the U.N. mission
there - 22 other cases of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation have
been reported in the past 14 months.
The new allegations have surfaced just weeks after a damning
report found that "gross institutional failures" in the U.N.'s
handling of sexual abuse cases helped perpetuate the problem. The
organization has been grappling with accusations of sexual abuse by
peacekeepers for decades. When the first round of allegations in
the Central African Republic came to light last year, Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon referred to the issue as "a cancer in our
system."
Part of the issue has to do with the way the organization is
structured. The high demand for U.N. peacekeepers means that the
the organization is constantly scrambling for personnel - so
training and oversight take a hit. And if peacekeepers engage in
sexual abuse, the U.N. cannot punish them directly. They're under
the legal protection of their home countries, explains Sarah
Taylor, a women's rights advocate at the nonprofit Human Rights
Watch.
So what will it take to cure this persistent cancer? We asked
Taylor to explain barriers to overcoming it.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why are sexual abuse and exploitation so common in these
peacekeeping missions?
I can't say exactly.
Yet clearly it is happening.
It's incredibly important to remember how vulnerable these
communities are where the peacekeepers are stationed. Civilians and
local populations have been subjected to all kinds of violence.
There's been a breakdown of local governance, there's often food
shortages. So there are all sorts of ways that these populations
are vulnerable to abuse.
It seems that another issue is the way the U.N. is
structured.
Part of the challenge is that the U.N. is dependent on
troop-contributing countries for the staff that makes up these
missions. And there is usually shortage of troops. So there's no
consequences for these countries [if their representatives commit
abuse] - the U.N. doesn't say, "Until you get your house in order,
we're not going to accept your troops."
But the U.N. does have some leverage here - there's money
they're providing to these countries for providing troops.
Do peacekeepers who commit sexual abuse face any
consequences?
The U.N. itself has very limited ability to get judicial redress
once these troops return to their home countries. It's then up to
the home governments to decide what to do.
In Haiti a few years ago, Pakistani troops were accused of
sexual abuse. So [the Pakistani government] actually created a
military tribunal in Haiti to try two Pakistani soldiers who were
then sent back to Pakistan to serve their sentences, in this case a
year in prison with hard labor. That doesn't usually happen.
There is a very complex bureaucratic system of memorandums of
understanding between the U.N. and those countries that provide
troops. Within 10 days, member states are supposed to send in an
update to say they're investigating these cases or prosecuting the
offenders. But there's no consequences for countries that don't
provide this information - so half the time they don't. It becomes
extremely difficult to find out what happens to the troops once
they're repatriated into their countries.
So what can the U.N. do?
There are things: strong leadership within the U.N. to follow up
on cases, regular reporting so we have a better idea of how many
allegations there have been - and of course, providing support and
counseling for the survivors. Because this absolutely needs to be
about the survivors. They're often left without medical services,
they're often left without long-term counseling.
Are you optimistic that we'll finally see some progress on
this issue?
This has been going on for such a long time. Since the 1990s,
there's been allegations of this sort of abuse from peacekeeping
troops and staff in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Cambodia, in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Haiti, South Sudan,
Central African Republic. And the troops that have been responsible
- at least the ones we know of - have been from Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of
Congo and France.
Now there's finally a proposal in the U.N. that repeat offender
countries will not be allowed to provide troops until they can
demonstrate that they've addressed this issue. But we've yet to see
if there's going to be follow through and if that's actually going
to work.
Kilde: NPR
|
