UN says it will halt sex abuse by its forces. Again.
The UN’s performance in peacekeeping missions has been less than stellar, both militarily (Srebrenica, anyone?) and in terms of humanitarian assistance. The most common result of UN forces coming in to “assist” the locals? A booming sex trade wherein UN forces wind up both abusing their positions in order to get sex from the local girls and becoming pimps themselves.
Well, they’ve finally had enough of that and they’re going to get serious this time. Honest.
But as a new wave of more than 2000 UN-employed police and staff prepare to travel to the capital Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time that the UN system failed to bring anyone to justice for crimes that included sex abuse of children and bestiality.
Dr Hasegawa declared that the UN’s Integrated Mission in East Timor (UNMIT), which became operational on Monday, would enforce a “zero tolerance” policy towards sexual exploitation and abuse committed by UN personnel.
He said several UN staff would be employed solely to enforce the policy, which will include briefings for all staff.
Briefings. Yeah, that oughta do it. Best line out of this report, and the 1 line you can bet no UN official is going to even acknowledge, let alone do anything about? Here you go:
It revealed that one UN peacekeeper from an unnamed country sexually abused two boys and two girls in the enclave of Oecussi, and in 2001, two Jordanian soldiers were evacuated home with injured penises after attempting sexual intercourse with goats.
How’d you like to fill out the health insurance application on that one?
Those of us in the blogosphere are well familiar with the UN’s lack of willpower on these issues, so I hope Turtle Bay will forgive us if we wait to see concrete results of their “zero tolerance” policies.
