UN Workers Accused Of Sexually Abusing 60,000 Victims In Decade

UN Workers Accused Of Sexually Abusing 60,000 Victims In Decade

By Dina Berliner | The Media Line

February 22, 2018

MIDEAST STREETS

Former employee says global body greatly understates the incidence of criminal violations
A former high-level United Nations official publicly called on the global organization to be more transparent about sexual abuse by its aid workers, which he says has claimed as many as 60,000 victims over the past decade.
Andrew MacLeod, Chief of Operations at the UN’s Emergency Coordination Center in Pakistan from 2005-2008, publicly raised the issue last week just as another aid group, Oxfam—an international confederation of 20 non-governmental bodies—released a report of an internal investigation into a scandal involving workers it dispatched to Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.
That inquiry confirmed that various Oxfam staff members engaged in criminal behavior ranging from sexual abuse to fraud. The head of the mission, for example, admitted to using prostitutes in a villa rented by the aid group.
MacLeod has been a vocal advocate against abuses by UN aid workers since he resigned from the organization in 2009. “There’s a small number of people who deliberately target the aid world,” he told The Media Line. “We need to send a signal to the predatory pedophiles and the bad apples and the people tempted to turn bad [that] the aid industry will [no longer accept them and the way to do this is] by putting people in jail.”
In September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres conceded in a high-profile speech that the problem is indeed widespread. “Sexual exploitation and abuse is not [limited to] peacekeeping, it is [across] the entire United Nations,” he stressed. “It pains me to say that this behavior is perpetrated both by civilians and uniformed personnel and in settings ranging from humanitarian crises to peace operations to refugee camps—where people are vulnerable and public safety is largely absent.”
Because many incidents go unreported, MacLeod believes the actual figure is much larger. “A lot of people have criticized me about the number I used but nobody has come up with a better one. The purpose is to put pressure on the UN to release [more information],” he asserted.
While admitting that his approach was far from scientific, MacLeod says he arrived at the 60,000 estimate based on extrapolations made after statements by the UN secretary-general, who revealed that in 2016 145 incidents were perpetrated by peacekeepers alone, claiming 311 victims. Given that Guterres admitted that many abuses occur in other UN spheres, Macleod suggests that the actual number of victims that file formal complaints with the UN could exceed 600 per year. Going one step further, MacLeod says that because only 14 percent of rapes are reported in the United Kingdom, then the true number of victims per year could be about 6,000, or ten times as many over a decade.
By contrast, the UN’s online database of reported allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse lists 825 identified victims since 2010, or an average of about 100 every year, most of whom live in Africa.
Accordingly, the Code Blue campaign, an initiative of AIDS-Free World, has slammed MacLeod for grossly exaggerating the figure, writing in a press release that it is “a fictitious number drawn from thin air and based on feckless extrapolations.”
Code Blue and MacLeod do see eye-to-eye on one important matter; namely, ensuring that UN workers accused of sexual exploitation are not protected by diplomatic immunity.
In response to such accusations, a Guterres spokesperson denied the UN shields its employees from prosecution in cases of abuse.
“Sexual exploitation and abuse by humanitarian workers of the very people they are meant to be helping is the gravest violation of trust,” Jens Laerke, a representative of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stressed to The Media Line in an email.
Laerke explained that while he does not believe any “proactive background checks” are conducted on potential UN workers, at least some contracts require applicants to divulge whether they have been convicted of any crimes.
“We have established reporting, investigative, and disciplinary proceedings, as well as victim-assistance programs,” Laerke added. “We are committed to mandating regular training for all staff members and to making information about sexual abuse prevention available to all personnel.”
(Dina Berliner is a Student Intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program)