{"id":23687,"date":"2016-03-05T02:39:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T02:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/un-sex-abuse-scandal-rise-in-allegations-against\/"},"modified":"2016-03-05T02:38:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T02:38:21","slug":"un-sex-abuse-scandal-rise-in-allegations-against","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/un-sex-abuse-scandal-rise-in-allegations-against\/","title":{"rendered":"UN sex abuse scandal: Rise in allegations against peacekeepers"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Allegations of sexual exploitation or sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers rose by a third last year, according to a UN report.}<\/p>\n

There were 69 claims against peacekeepers in 2015, up from 52 in 2014 was 66 in 2013.<\/p>\n

Almost a third of the 2015 claims were made in the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n

For the first time, the report has also set out all the countries whose soldiers are reportedly involved under a new “name-and-shame” policy.<\/p>\n

Overall, 10 peacekeeping missions were subject to allegations in 2015.
\nThe allegations involve military personnel, international police, other staff and volunteers.<\/p>\n

According to the UN’s latest figures, there are 124,746 personnel serving in 16 peacekeeping missions worldwide.<\/p>\n

It has been criticised for failing to act quickly on sexual abuse allegations made against peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Last December an independent panel calling the UN response to allegations in the Central African Republic (CAR) “seriously flawed” and a “gross institutional failure”.<\/p>\n

It accused senior UN officials of abusing their authority by failing to take action over allegations of abuse by soldiers from France, Equatorial Guinea and Chad.<\/p>\n

‘Court-martial’<\/p>\n

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s report called for an international convention on “crimes committed in peacekeeping operations”.<\/p>\n

He also urged countries to change their laws so that they apply to sex crimes committed by citizens serving in UN peace operations.<\/p>\n

Mr Ban also called for “on-site court martial proceedings” for some crimes and a DNA database of all peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

UN peacekeepers operate under the legal jurisdiction of their home countries, making prosecution more difficult.<\/p>\n

In February, the UN said it would send home more than 100 peacekeepers from CAR following sexual abuse allegations.<\/p>\n

A 10,000-strong UN force took over a peacekeeping mission in the country in September 2014.<\/p>\n

After CAR, the second highest number of allegations was at the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, with 16 cases, followed by Haiti with nine.<\/p>\n

\"Most<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Allegations of sexual exploitation or sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers rose by a third last year, according to a UN report.} There were 69 claims against peacekeepers in 2015, up from 52 in 2014 was 66 in 2013. Almost a third of the 2015 claims were made in the Central African Republic. For the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23687"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23687"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}