While confirming that the conduct and discipline of troops was primarily the responsibility of troop-contributing countries, the Security Council recognized Tuesday the shared responsibility of the Secretary-General and all Member States to take every measure within their purview (myndighedsområde) to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse by all categories of peacekeeping personnel, and to enforce United Nations standards of conduct in that regard.
In a statement read out by Council President Ellen Margrethe Løj of Denmark) – following its first-ever public meeting devoted exclusively to sexual exploitation and abuse – the Council condemned, in the strongest terms, all acts of sexual abuse and exploitation committed by peacekeepers and reiterated the importance of ensuring that they were properly investigated and appropriately punished.
The Council was deeply concerned that the distinguished and honourable record of accomplishment in UN peacekeeping was being tarnished by the acts of a few individuals and underlined that the provision of an environment in which sexual exploitation and abuse were not tolerated was primarily the responsibility of managers and commanders.
The Council would consider including relevant provisions for preventing, monitoring, investigating and reporting misconduct cases in its resolutions establishing new mandates or renewing existing mandates.
In that regard, it called upon the Secretary-General to include, in his regular reporting of peacekeeping missions, a summary of the preventative measures taken to implement a zero-tolerance policy and of the outcome of actions taken against personnel found culpable for sexual exploitation and abuse.
Briefing the Council earlier, Prince Zeid Raad Zeid Al-Hussein (Jordan) the Secretary-Generals Special Adviser on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, compared a peacekeeper who exploited the vulnerabilities of a wounded population, already victimized by war, to a physician who violated the patient entrusted to their care or the lifeguard who drowned the very people in need of rescue.
Actions of that sort punctured violently the hope embodied by the very presence of the person who was there to help those in need.
However rare they may be, such repugnant abuses struck at the very credibility of both the peacekeeping operation in question and the United Nations as a whole, he said.
Sexual exploitation and abuse would not be eliminated from UN peacekeeping so long as some among the general United Nations membership and the Secretariat would have it believed that the furore regarding sexual exploitation and abuse was an over-exaggeration, a media-inspired public-relations issue, and nothing more – one that would surely soon lapse into the past.
Also briefing the Council, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said his Department treated the issue as a matter of the highest priority.
Since 1 December 2004, investigations had been completed into allegations involving 152 peacekeeping personnel (32 civilians, 3 civilian police and 117 military) and five United Nations staff members had so far been summarily dismissed.
Nine more were undergoing the disciplinary process, and four had been cleared. Two uniformed police unit members and 77 military personnel had been repatriated or rotated home on disciplinary grounds, including six military commanders.
Regarding the enforcement on standards of conduct, he said that missions in Ivory Coast, Liberia, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kosovo and Timor-Leste had established lists of premises and areas frequented by prostitutes, which were now out of bounds to all personnel.
There was a network of focal points on sexual exploitation and abuse in all missions to facilitate receipt of allegations, as well as telephone hotlines in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
At Headquarters, the Department had established a task force to develop guidance and tools for peacekeeping operations to address sexual exploitation and abuse effectively.
Kilde: www.runiceurope.org
