UN probing charges of sex abuse in DR of Congo, peacekeeping official says

The United Nations has dispatched two teams to investigate 150 charges of sexual exploitation and abuse by its civilian and military personnel serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a senior UN official.

The allegations include criminal activity, paedophilia, rape and solicitation of prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), at a press briefing Monday.

To combat the problem, the Department will deploy a special investigative team to come up with short- and long-term strategies to deal with such cases at peacekeeping missions, she said.

"We recognize that sexual exploitation and abuse is a problem in some missions and we're working for a systematic and coordinated approach to strengthen the measures we have in place," she said. "It's obvious that the measures we have had in place have not been adequate to deal with the changing circumstances found in some missions."

Last Friday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement voicing his outrage at the accusations and pledging to stamp out such behaviour. "I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it," he said.

Referring to the UN Organization Mission in the DRC, he added: "We cannot rest until we have rooted out all such practices from MONUC, from any other peacekeeping operation, and indeed anywhere in the Organization that they might occur. And we must make sure that those involved are held fully accountable."

MONUC, which was set up in 1999, comprises nearly 1,000 international civilian staff and 11,000 uniformed military and police personnel contributed by over 50 countries.

Ms. Lute told journalists that a number of the allegations were specific to Bunia, located in the northeastern DRC, and that the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) would be issuing a report on its investigation soon. While that was going on, she added, rapid response investigative teams made up of military, police and civilian experts would address the other allegations throughout the Mission.

In addition to that, the Department of Management, the Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM) and DPKO had organized a team, which arrived Monday in the DRC, to investigate cases involving civilians, Ms. Lute said. If those investigations confirmed the basis of the allegations, additional procedures would be taken consistent with staff rules and instructions.

She said DPKO was doing everything it could on a systematic basis to respond aggressively to the problem. "We are shining a light on this problem in order to determine the scope that it represents, and we will not stop there," she stressed.

In July the Secretary-General appointed Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the Permanent Representative of Jordan, as an adviser on the question of sexual exploitation. He has already visited the DRC to get a first-hand understanding of the nature of the problem, and spoken to a number of Member States about addressing system-wide approaches to deal with the issue.

Video of press briefing [37 mins]