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| Child sex abuse claims shake UN as revelations continue |
| 2015-05-31 |
| [BIGSTORY.AP.ORG] The boys said they approached the French soldiers because they were hungry. Some were so young they didn't quite understand the acts the soldiers demanded in return. One boy, 8 or 9 years old, said he did it several times to the same soldier, "until one day an older kid saw him and told him what he was doing was bad." Another boy, 9, said he thought the soldiers had been urinating. U.N. Sherlocks heard such stories of sexual abuse from several boys in May and June 2014 in Central African Republic, where French soldiers were protecting a sprawling displaced persons camp in the conflict-torn capital, Bangui. One year later, revelations about how the U.N. handled the boys' accounts have horrified people both inside and outside the world body. Statements marked "strictly confidential" have shown that its top human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... officials failed to follow up for several months on the allegations their own office had collected. On Saturday, the high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said his office was sending a team to Central African Republic to look into what the statement called "possible further measures to address human rights violations," including sexual violence. The office also will ask "concerned states" what they have done to investigate them and prosecute anyone. No arrests have been announced, and it's not clear where the accused soldiers, who were supporting a U.N. peacekeeping force, are now. The U.N. seems unable to say when the abuses stopped, or how long it continued to investigate. On Friday, more documents were released by a non-governmental organization run by two former U.N. staffers that's calling for an independent investigation into the case. The documents show U.N. officials scrambling not so much to help a French inquiry into the allegations but to investigate the human rights staffer who told French authorities in the first place. A separate report with the children's allegations, obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, says the first account was heard May 19 by a human rights staffer and a UNICEF child protection officer. The interviews continued through June 24. A Geneva-based human rights staffer shared the report with French authorities in July. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Makes one wonder how widespread and high the program goes. Do you mean stories like this? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2015-05-31 18:17 |
| #2 You can shake UN? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-05-31 01:57 |
| #1 The Food for Nookie program is still alive and well. Sorry to say. Interesting that their first reaction was to go after the staffer who reported it. But not suprising given the U.N. Makes one wonder how widespread and high the program goes. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2015-05-31 01:32 |