Relief From Relief: Sexual Exploitation by Peacekeepers, Part 2

The second in a small series of rants about sexual exploitation and abuse of power in the humanitarian world, submitted by a friend working at a large NGO - a friend who has requested anonymity, and asked to go by the nom de guerre 'Relief from Relief'.

So, without further ado, Relief from Relief on Sexual Exploitation by Peacekeepers:

More and more, the UN Security Council is asking countries to send combat-ready troops to places like the DRC who are ready to kick some ass - hunt down the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA); in UNMIS, there was discussion about adjusting the rules of engagement to better instruct them how to fight child combatants around the LRA in South Sudan.

And there really aren't that many places where international militaries can go to learn the gentle art of peacekeeping. Western countries invest more energy and time in discussing international human rights, the Geneva Convention, and discipline. But you don't see that many Western countries clamoring to send troops to the DRC, Sudan, or other difficult Chapter 7 missions.

Who does the burden of troop contributing fall too? The top four troop contributing countries are India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Jordan. Indian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani armies have all been accused of the same such behaviour in their own countries. The behaviour of these armies in Manipur, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and the Kashmir region have been brutal.

Sending cold-blooded killers from countries where the army has a reputation of conducting human rights abuses and running them through a 2 week UN training program about human rights and gender sensitivity doesn’t seem to have created wholesale behavior change from peacemaker to peacekeeper. Yet that is the response.

Instead the UN, in its desperation and own uniquely bureaucratic and inept way, uses gender advisors and code of conduct offices to handle what are really serious allegations of lawbreaking and abuse.

Where's the UN's Internal Affairs division? Why doesn't the UN just say NO! Don't send us these guys! The Republicans in the US would have you believe that its because the UN is filled with pedophiles and rapists and this is why we should disband it right away.

But the UN (or rather the member countries who make up the UN and the hapless bureaucrats in that crumbling building in New York City) can't turn away ANY troops because they are desperate for troops and they'll take any that they can get.

Peacekeeping missions are slow to deploy and involve complicated negotiations about what the UN will give to the troop contributing countries. Everyone has heard the stories of Bangladeshi troops arriving with just the clothes on their backs and flip flops and met some of the overweight US cops who were sweating it out in Liberia to pay their kids college education while they wail and moan about the heat, the crappy food, and the stupid natives.

There are professionals, sure. Some of them will impress you with their discipline and go get 'em attitudes. But the stories keep coming out of peacekeepers keeping prostitutes busy in Goma, abusing civilians in Monrovia, and running around with guns and speedos in Bangui. Unless there is a serious attempt to instill respect for human rights and protection of civilians in these armies, we'll just keep seeing the same stories come up time and time again.

But those folks who rush off to wars without guns to “help the people” can be just as guilty of abusing women and children. More on this later...

[UN Peacekeepers in eastern Congo - Photo from AFP / Getty]