sexual exploitation and abuse

MINUSCA peacekeepers on guard in the city of Bangassou, Central African Republic, January 15, 2021.
MINUSCA/Leonel Grothe

UN sends Gabon peacekeepers home from Central African Republic, following abuse allegations

15 September 2021
Peace and Security

The United Nations announced on Wednesday that all Gabonese military units deployed to the peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic, MINUSCA, are to be sent home immediately, following credible reports alleging that unidentified ‘blue helmets’ had abused five girls.

Conflict and displacement place women and girls at increased risk of gender-based violence.
© UNICEF/Vincent Tremeau

Guterres: Bring crimes of sexual violence in conflict out of ‘the shadows’, punish perpetrators

17 June 2021
Human Rights

Sexual violence in conflict “reverberates down generations” and threatens both human and international security, the UN chief said on Thursday in his message for the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

UN human rights experts are warning of a direct link between the pandemic, socio-economic vulnerability and the risk of exploitation, including forced labour or being sold, trafficked and sexually exploited.
© UNICEF/Noorani

The pandemic is fuelling slavery and sexual exploitation, UN experts warn

30 November 2020
Human Rights

The COVID-19 pandemic has played into the hands of slavers and traffickers and requires stronger government measures to prevent exploitation of vulnerable people, more than 50 independent UN human rights experts said in a statement on Monday. 

Three girls in Progreso, Yoro, Honduras, ages 13 to 14, who are friends and victims of harassment at their school, for the purpose of sex trafficking. The person behind it is a 15 year-old student that works with a network that co-opts young girls.
UNICEF/Adriana Zehbrauskas

Social media-based trafficking on the rise during coronavirus pandemic

11 November 2020
Human Rights

A UN rights committee has called on social media platforms to use big data and artificial intelligence to help eliminate trafficking in women and girls, amid an increase in online traps designed to recruit potential victims during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Colombian youth worker Mayerlin Vegara Perez has been named UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award Laureate 2020.
© UNHCR/Nicolo Filippo Rosso

Top humanitarian award winner ‘nothing short of heroic’: UN refugee chief 

1 October 2020
Migrants and Refugees

An educator and rights defender who has spent more than 20 years rescuing exploited and trafficked children in Colombia, represents “the best of us”, the UN refugee chief said on Thursday, as she was named the winner of this year’s Nansen Refugee Award.

Victims of the Ebola disease have been buried at Kitatumba cemetery in the Butembo in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. (August 2019)
UN Photo/Martine Perret

WHO, IOM and UNICEF promise investigation of sexual abuse allegations against workers in DR Congo

29 September 2020
Law and Crime Prevention

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, promised that any of its staff working as part of the agency’s Ebola response team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) found to have been involved in sexual exploitation and abuse, would face “serious consequences, including instant dismissal.”

Women near the town of Kladanj, in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995).
© UNICEF/LeMoyne

Bosnia and Herzegovina should recognise sex crime survivors’ rights, say experts

19 August 2020
Law and Crime Prevention

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, tens of thousands of victims of sexual violence committed during conflict in the 1990s still await justice, UN-appointed rights experts said on Wednesday.

The UN Trust Fund in support of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse has supported women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo receive vocational trainings like sewing.
MONUSCO/Michael Ali

Restoring dignity to victims of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN personnel

6 July 2020
Women

Projects supported by a UN trust fund for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel, are helping victims to regain their dignity, learn new skills, and improve their livelihoods.

UNTSO Headquarters in Jerusalem
UN Photo/John Isaac

UN probes ‘abhorrent’ video showing ‘likely’ field staffers engaging in alleged sexual misconduct

26 June 2020
UN Affairs

The UN has launched an investigation into a video which surfaced on social media this week showing a clearly marked UN vehicle on a busy city street, while a woman straddles a man on the back seat engaging in a sex act, with others sitting inside.

An art exhibition in Juba, supported by the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), seeks to educate people about gender and sexual based violence. (May 2019)
UNMISS/Nektarios Markogiannis

Sexual exploitation and abuse: latest UN quarterly update

5 September 2019
Peace and Security

In the second quarter of 2019, the United Nations received 38 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) involving UN personnel, including civilian and uniformed personnel from peacekeeping operations, as well as those from agencies, funds and programmes, according to the latest figures released on Thursday.