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UN chief orders inquiry into handling of child abuse claims against French soldiers UN chief orders review of handling of claims of child abuse by French soldiers
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The United Nations secretary-general is ordering an external, independent investigation into the way the world body has handled children’s claims of sexual abuse by French soldiers in Central African Republic. The UN’s Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has ordered an independent external review of how the United Nations handled allegations of sexual abuse of children by French and African troops in the Central African Republic (CAR).
A UN statement on Wednesday said the review will address both the specific allegations and wider issues related to how the UN responds to such sensitive claims. The move follows revelations in the Guardian in April that a senior UN official had been suspended for disclosing an internal report on the alleged abuse to French prosecutors.
A year after the UN first heard accounts by children as young as nine of French soldiers giving them food or water in exchange for sodomy or oral sex, no arrests have been made. The UN has been rocked by criticism of its response to the serious allegations of child sexual abuse at a camp for displaced civilians from December 2013 to June 2014.
Confidential statements by the UN’s top human rights officials show that they were distracted for more than half a year by budget cuts and other issues, and did not follow up on the allegations with the French. Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN chief, said on Wednesday: “His [the secretary general’s] intention in setting up this review is to ensure that the United Nations does not fail the victims of sexual abuse, especially when committed by those who are meant to protect them.”
“There are systems that failed here,” Dujarric told reporters. “This was not handled in the way that the secretary general would want it to be handled.”
French prosecutors, themselves under pressure over an apparent failure to act quickly to identify and prosecute the suspected soldiers, last month ordered a criminal investigation into the allegations that French peacekeeping soldiers raped children and demanded sex for food in the CAR.
Authorities in Paris said that 14 French soldiers were under investigation, ten months after it received the leaked UN report and opened a preliminary investigation.
The UN has been criticised for taking action against Anders Kompass, the official who leaked the report to the French – sources say because he suspected the UN would not take action.
Kompass, director of field operations, was suspended in April. An appeal tribunal subsequently found that his suspension was unlawful and ordered his reinstatement while an internal management review continues.
French troops were deployed to the Central African Republic in December 2013 to help African Union peacekeepers restore order after the country exploded into violence triggered by a coup. The alleged abuses took place in 2014 when Minusca, a UN mission in the country, was in the process of being set up.
Last month Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, blamed the French – who had jurisdiction over the soldiers – for not responding sooner to the allegations.
The internal UN report contained interviews with six children alleging sexual abuse from December 2013 to May 2014. Zeid said: “What was happening in December, in March, in May? Someone knew, they didn’t report. Who was that person?”
The Guardian was passed the internal report on the sexual exploitation by Paula Donovan, co-director of the advocacy group Aids Free World, who has been demanding an independent commission inquiry into the UN’s handling of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.
The NGO said on Wednesday that the UN inquiry must be “a truly external and independent inquiry”, adding that no member of existing UN staff should be appointed to investigate.
Aids Free World said in a statement: “Second, it must be understood that top members of the Secretary-General’s own staff will have to be subject to investigation. This must go right up to the level of Under-Secretaries General.”
It added: “What happened in the Central African Republic was an atrocity, but the fact that the UN stood silent for nearly a year after its own discovery of widespread peacekeeper sexual abuse (even if by non-UN troops) is itself a bitter commentary on the Secretary-General’s declared policy of ‘zero tolerance’.”
“If Mr. Ban Ki-moon and Member States want to rescue zero tolerance, they must cleanse the UN system of negligence and misconduct once and for all.”
Ban Ki-moon issued a statement that the review would examine the treatment of the specific report of abuse in the Central African Republic, as well as a broad range of systemic issues related to how the UN responds to serious information of this kind.
It added: “As has been stated over the past few weeks, the Secretary-General is deeply disturbed by the allegations of sexual abuse by soldiers in the Central African Republic, as well as allegations of how this was handled by the various parts of the UN system involved. His intention in setting up this review is to ensure that the United Nations does not fail the victims of sexual abuse, especially when committed by those who are meant to protect them.”
The UN said that the identity of who will lead the review would be announced in the next few days.