The U.N.'s Self-Inflicted Wounds

Rep. Boozman's Column for the Week of March 6, 2005

Washington, Mar 6 - As the United Nations continues to come under fire for their mismanagement of the Oil-For-Food Program, they find themselves involved with an even more disturbing scandal. And unfortunately, this scandal is getting less attention than the Oil-For-Food debacle.

Widespread allegations of sexual exploitation, rape and sexual abuse of women and children have been leveled against U.N. peacekeeping troops in the Congo. The very people who the Congolese have turned to for protection are in fact, creating more pain and turmoil in one of the poorest and most war-revenged places in the world.
The U.N. first sent peacekeepers to Congo five years ago in an effort to stop a raging border war and protect the Congolese people from brutal militias. The first reports of sex crimes began within a year of their arrival.

The allegations are startling. The range of sexual abuses include rape of Congolese women, sexual molestation of minors and an internet child porn ring run by a senior U.N. official working for the mission.

The majority of cases focus on what human rights investigators call "survival sex." There have been numerous allegations of peacekeepers giving food items like eggs and peanut butter to starving underage women in exchange for sex. Because of this, hundreds of young girls have given birth to babies of peacekeepers who turn their backs on any obligation to care for the children. The U.N. in turn, turns their collective back on the need to hold these peacekeepers accountable for their actions.

The peacekeeping troops in the Congo come from 50 different U.N. member states and are only accountable to their own governments. The U.N. is hesitant to coerce these member nations to take action because few governments are willing to commit peacekeeping troops to their mission already. This however, is a weak excuse. The U.N.'s unwillingness to truly address the problem creates a permissive environment for peacekeepers to abuse their positions.

A variety of U.N. and humanitarian organization reports suggest that the U.N. is creating a predatory sexual culture in the Congo and on other peacekeeping missions. While contending that they will conduct full investigations into the problem, the U.N. is really turning a blind eye to the gravity of the situation.

"The Weekly Standard" recently reported that to date, of the hundreds of allegations regarding sex crimes involving U.N. personnel, only two people have faced any kind of prosecution. One of those two cases involves a senior U.N. logistics officer named Didier Bourguet, a French citizen who photographed numerous young Congolese girls having sex with him. ABC News obtained these photos - which Congolese officials suspect Bourguet was sharing with his U.N. Colleagues - and in one shot, a tear can be seen rolling down the check of the victim. In his defense, Bourguet's lawyer admits that his client was involved in systematic sexual relations with minors, but that the U.N. created an environment in which sex with young girls was permissible.

We recently addressed this issue during a hearing in the House International Relations Africa and Human Rights Subcommittee. During that hearing, I questioned Jane Holl Lute, the Assistant Secretary-General for the U.N. Peacekeeping Department, about the allegations. She said that the U.N. had repatriated 63 peacekeepers from Congo and continues to investigate allegations that U.N. personnel bribed girls as young as 12 to have sex. While this is a good step, it is far from the aggressive action that is needed to end this scandal. Until the U.N. looks at its internal policies that permit these horrific crimes and takes a tougher stance on these sexual predators, the organization will continue to suffer from what Ms. Holl Lute described as the "self-inflicted wounds" that scar the U.N. in the eyes of the world.

Source