 UNITED NATIONS - The Daily Telegraph of London reported on Tuesday that UN peacekeepers and civilian staff were raping and abusing children as young as 12 in southern Sudan. The newspaper, in a story posted on its Web site, said it had gathered accounts from more than 20 young victims in the town of Juba of UN civilian and peacekeeping staff forcing them to have sex.
| This isn't unusual. The outrage is that this isn't unusual. |
The UN Peacekeeping Department in New York declined to comment. The report appeared on the first day of work for UN leader Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who this week became the world bodyÂ’s eighth secretary-general, succeeding Kofi Annan of Ghana.
There are more than 11,000 UN peacekeepers and police from some 70 countries in southern Sudan, enforcing a January 2005 peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war.
The Telegraph said the first signs of sexual exploitation of local youths in southern Sudan emerged within days months of the peacekeepersÂ’ arrival in March 2005. The UN ChildrenÂ’s Fund UNICEF drafted an internal report detailing the problem, it said.
The newspaper said SudanÂ’s government had gathered evidence including video footage of UN workers having sex with young girls. But the United Nations has yet to publicly acknowledge there was a problem or even investigate, the newspaper said.
| Kofi was going to get around to it but his term ended. |
exual abuse charges have surfaced for decades in UN peacekeeping missions and among civilian and other humanitarian staff operating in world hot spots. But the United Nations began more or less seriously pursuing offenders in the past two years after reports of widespread abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has 17,000 troops.
| Semi-pursuing this as far as necessary to get the human rights do-gooders off their backs, since even the usual apologists for the U.N. started getting upset. Don't expect Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International to make this a front-page issue anytime soon. |
Since January 2004, the United Nations has investigated abuse allegations against 319 military and civilian personnel in all its missions, the world body said in late November. It has disciplined 179 soldiers, civilians and police since then but acknowledges minors and the poor are still exploited.
| The 'disciplining' consists of sending them back to their home countries, where rarely anything more is done. How about creating an international court for this one? Carla del Ponte could stay busy for decades. |
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