Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Missions

A culture that tolerates sexual exploitation and abuse and a tradition of silence has evolved in United Nations peacekeeping missions. Effective peacekeeping operations can transform conflict and bring about a stable peace so that displaced people can return home and societies can begin to rebuild. Allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse cast a dark shadow over the positive impacts that UN peacekeepers have made and compromise their mission to secure the peace.

Responses to sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeeping missions vary, as does the recording of these incidences. The policies and guidelines set by UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) about sexual exploitation and abuse in missions are not always followed in the field. Furthermore, the process of mainstreaming gender into peacekeeping missions, or incorporating gender perspectives into all areas of work, has yet to truly take hold within many of the UN missions.

RI Advocacy

Refugees International is advocating for the UN to ensure that the necessary funding and resources are made available to fully address the problem. UN missons must integrate a greater gender perspective into peacekeeping missions, including more training in gender awareness and reporting mechanisms and punishments within the UN for violations. Approaches to sexual exploitation must be changed to reflect the fact that sexual exploitation and abuse are primarily problems of abuse of power that merit disciplinary action, and only secondarily problems of sexual behavior. RI recommends that the Special Representatives to the Secretary-General (SRSG) in UN peacekeeping missions as well as all managers must be held accountable for ensuring that sexual exploitation and abuse are taken seriously and perpetrators are punished. RI also recommends that regional peacekeeping institutes incorporate UN curriculum and expand to support troop-contributing countries.

RI's report, Must Boys be Boys, provides a comprehensive look at the causes of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers in Liberia and Haiti, the efforts made by the UN to address the problem, and concrete recommendations for further action.

Sarah Martin, author of Must Boys Be Boys? gave a talk about the issue to The Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights on February 1, 2006.