Report on sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers under review

A UN special committee began on Monday its review of a report on sexual misconduct by UN peacekeeping personnel, according to a statement issued in New York by the General Assembly. The 113-member team is scheduled to complete the review and submit its findings to the Assembly's administrative and budgetary committee before the end of May, to enable "appropriate action" to be taken by the 59th session of the General Assembly. In its statement, the Assembly said it shared UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's concerns about recent revelations of sexual exploitation and abuses in UN peacekeeping missions. The special committee was established in 1965 to conduct comprehensive reviews of all peacekeeping-related issues. In February, the Assembly asked Annan to prepare a comprehensive report on sex offences in peacekeeping missions. According to the Assembly, the special committee had "sought recommendations on such exploitation and abuse by military, civilian police and civilian personnel in United Nations peacekeeping missions managed by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations". It added that in response Annan's adviser, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, had prepared "sweeping recommendations, including the establishment of a voluntary trust fund for victims - funded in part through fines levied against civilian and uniformed personnel found to have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse". Zeid's report had also recommended "on-site court-martial proceedings for egregious crimes, such as rape" as well as "the dissemination of pocket-sized cards reprinting the United Nations standards on sexual exploitation and abuse in the national languages of the troop contributors", the assembly said. The UN Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who addressed the special committee on Monday before it moved into an working group until 8 April, said the problem of sexual abuse threatened to undermine the many gains of peacekeeping and besmirch the name of the UN. He said the problem was abhorrent, but one could take courage from the shared sense of urgency and determination that existed across the UN to correct the problem. Guéhenno added that it was with that sense of urgency and determination that his department had already undertaken a range of measures. These included investigations into allegations of sexual exploitation involving 96 peacekeeping personnel: 19 civilians and 77 military. So far, he said, three UN staff had been summarily dismissed; six more were undergoing the disciplinary process; and three had been cleared. On the military side, 66 people had been repatriated or rotated home on disciplinary grounds, including six commanders. Missions had also put in place a wide array of measures to prevent misconduct, from establishing focal points for receiving allegations, to installing telephone hotlines and requiring troops to wear their uniforms at all times, Guéhenno said. However, he said with improved complaints mechanisms in the field the problem was likely to appear to get worse before it got better.