Earlier today, I shared this link on my Facebook page: U.N. fails to stem rapes by peacekeepers in Africa, victims cry.
It's not a new story and I moved on to other topics, but I couldn't shake it from my mind. So I did some searching and found the following.
U.N. Peacekeepers Ran a Child Sex Ring in Haiti (2017)
One victim told U.N. investigators, “I did not even have breasts,” according to the AP. Over a period of three years, beginning when she was 12 years old, she was forced to have sex with over 50 peacekeepers, the AP said.‘Sometimes when I’m alone with my baby,I think about killing him. He reminds me of the man who raped me.’ (2016)
[W]hen the soldiers began arriving in 2014, there was still a massive food shortage. Some peacekeepers recognized their leverage over a city of starving women and girls.The UN Peacekeepers Rape Scandal Gets Worse
Two teenage girls recalled approaching a base of Moroccan peacekeepers to beg for food. Neither had ever had sex, they said in a recent interview, but they agreed to sleep with the soldiers after the men suggested they would give the girls water, food and money. The older girl, then 16, said she met one man in a vacant house. The younger girl, then 15, said she met another soldier next to a base. Both girls said they regretted what they had done almost immediately.
Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers was first documented in Bosnia and Kosovo in the early 1990s. As the frequency has increased, so has impunity for the perpetrators, partly because responsibility for punishment falls to home countries. The UN can send troops home and document the reasons why, but it can’t impose criminal charges or jail offenders.Peacekeepers gone wild: How much more abuse will the UN ignore in Congo? (2012)
“The UN is famous as a place where rapists get away with rape,” said Paula Donovan, co-founder and director of Aids-Free World.
In February, 2011, two orphans, Gisèle, then 14, and her sister Espérance, 15, were attacked by five soldiers, three from MONUSCO and two from the Congo's notoriously undisciplined and brutal army. While the Congolese were beating Gisèle, Espérance was gang raped and beaten by the three white MONUSCO soldiers. She was both badly injured and pregnant. Last October, Espérance gave birth by cesarean section. Her son died two days later.United Nations Troops (Literally) Rape Black Men, Women, and Children with Impunity. And Its Time We Exposed It.
The U.N. didn't even bother to commission a report on rape within its ranks until 2006, despite allegations that span decades. And since that report was written, the only major action taken by the organization was the expulsion of nearly 1,000 troops whose units have been tied to rape cases.(Among them was the entire contingent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.) (...)
I didn't even make it to the end of the first page of search results.Time and time again, the organization has not only failed to prevent genocides (remember Rwanda?) but it has actually increased the suffering of the nations to which it has deployed troops. For instance, the organization admitted it caused the 2010 cholera epidemic [in Haiti] that killed more than 10,000 people and sickened hundreds of thousands more.
Like a disease.
This has been going on for decades. I bet if I did enough digging, I'd find that every time the UN Peacekeepers have been deployed, there has been an epidemic of rape and prostitution.
No outcry from the glitterati about this.
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