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Sexual abuse by UN troops in Congo hasn't stopped Sexual abuse of girls by U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was widespread and ongoing despite many revelations and probes, the U.N. watchdog agency reported on Friday.
The peacekeepers over the last year have been accused of gang rapes, sexual harassment and bribing children as young as 12 or 13 with eggs, milk and a few dollars to have sex in bushes, on the bare ground or under mango trees.
The new report by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) concentrates on Bunia, in the eastern part of the Congo, where fighting was intense earlier this year.
"In our view the problem was and continues to be widespread," Barbara Dixon of OIOS, who worked on the report, said at a news conference. "We ran into fairly substantial resistance from contingent commanders."
The 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 against a U.N. civilian employee.
They fully substantiated the abuses in seven cases, with young girls identifying soldiers from a line up.
Separate probes included cases against another 20 soldiers, of which investigations were completed against six, who were either repatriated or referred to their governments for action, U.N. officials said.
"A lot of the girls were traumatized, by war as well as abuse, Dixon said. "What they knew was if they wanted to eat, this was a way to do it."
FROM SEVERAL NATIONS
One French U.N. staffer, who made pornographic videos of children, was jailed in France for rape. South Africa is taking action against two soldiers. Allegations have also been made against soldiers from Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, and Nepal.
The United Nations has many rules for not taking advantage of the local population, especially sex with anyone under 18.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, was asked at a news conference why sex was not banned between the peacekeepers and the local population, regardless of age and since much of it appeared forced.
Guehenno said he agreed but questioned how a "universal diktat" could be implemented.
There are nearly 11,000 military personnel in the Congo to help keep the peace after a civil war. The force is the largest among the 64,000 soldiers in 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations around the world.
Many of the details in the report had been leaked previously, but OIOS also said the peacekeeping operation, led by American diplomat William Lacy Swing, had not yet implemented "an effective prevention program in Bunia."
But Swing said he had sent home two company commanders for not controlling their troops and listed a host of measures the world body was taking, including programs for the abused.
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.
Guehenno also said meetings were being held with troop-contributing countries, who are being challenged to come up with a "tough justice system." Charges of abuses among peacekeepers are not new. Canada and Italy, for example, disclosed more than a decade ago their soldiers had tortured Somalis. But media reports about them have multiplied and now U.N. officials speak about them openly. Dixon indicated, however, that some of those expelled from peacekeeping missions, ended up in other U.N. jobs instead of being "permanently blacklisted." |
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