What’s at stake?

Since the early 2000s, the United Nations has been implicated in numerous sexual abuse and exploitation (SEA) scandals during peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in fragile and conflict-affected states. Dozens of reforms to internal policies and practices aimed at mitigating the prevalence of SEA have fallen short due to legal and institutional barriers that continue to threaten the effectiveness and credibility of PKOs today.

In April 2015, The Guardian exposed a scandal that implicated UN peacekeepers in the SEA of children as young as nine in the Central African Republic. It exposed critical failures within the Organization’s bureaucracy, namely their significant inaction, indifference and lack of transparency since the allegations first came to light the previous year. Following the suspension and subsequent investigation of whistleblower Anders Kompass, former Director of Field Operations at OHCHR, news agencies began to recognize the issue as gross institutional failure. Kompass resigned in June 2016, stating that he could no longer work for an organization with zero accountability just a few short months after the former Assistant Secretary-General, Anthony Banbury cited similar reasons that led him to resign.

This was the climate that Antonio Guterres inherited when he was first elected as UN Secretary-General in October 2016. Within his first week in office, he announced his commitment to improving the UN’s strategy to prevent and respond to SEA by prioritizing a victim-centered approach. His 2017 report to the General Assembly outlined the Organization’s plan to end impunity by streamlining their reporting, accountability and transparency mechanisms, renewing efforts to work with civil society organizations, external experts and local communities, and leveraging strategic communication to raise awareness worldwide.

However, since institutional and operational constraints limit the power of the UN to hold perpetrators and troop-contributing countries (TCCs) accountable, can these policies be said to have teeth capable of producing visible and meaningful outcomes?

This brief critically examines the limitations of existing prevention, accountability and reporting mechanisms that serve to effectively eradicate and meaningfully address SEA by UN peacekeepers. While no single one of the following findings serves as the primary driver of this issue, their combined impact offers an explanation for its prevalence and why SEA will continue fostering a culture of impunity unless the Organization concentrates efforts and allocates resources towards bolder and transformative practices. These key findings include: 1) Inadequate pre-deployment gender training, 2) Accountability gaps, and 3) Internal and external barriers to SEA reporting.

Research Approach

The analysis presented in this policy brief was conducted using a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data. It draws on peer-reviewed journal articles, news articles, UN internal/organizational documents and website content. Peer-reviewed journal articles were retrieved through the OMNI uOttawa library database. A total of four peer-reviewed journals were selected to contribute to the creation of this policy brief, chosen to help situate the theoretical and practical concepts outlined in this article. Information drawn from UN websites, news releases as well as organizational documents, such as the Secretary-General’s 2017 and 2024 reports on “Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse,” to the UN General Assembly, were used to demonstrate how institutional policies have been addressed and changed over time.

Key Findings

The UN defines SEA as any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes. In the context of PKOs, SEA can occur as transactional sex, favours primarily exchanged for food, water, jobs or other essential supplies; but also constitute rape, paedophilia, torture, child pornography, and paternity of children conceived by peacekeepers.

The highest rates of SEA were found to occur during missions that involved deep and long-term engagement with local populations at their most vulnerable and in areas where public safety and legal systems are ineffective or entirely absent. SEA is particularly high among deployed single-nationality peacekeepers to remote locations and among personnel, forces or partners with no prior experience with UN field operations. While there exist numerous explanations for the prevalence of this issue, the following findings are among the most significant for understanding the complex and challenging institutional limitations at play.

Inadequate pre-deployment gender training

Since the majority of uniformed personnel deployed on PKOs are military troops, it is imperative that pre-deployment gender training materials recognize the significant and deeply entrenched role that “violent” or “militarized” masculinities play in the military cultures of TCCs. Military institutions around the world share normative ideals of masculinity primarily conveyed and sustained by socialization tactics that encourage soldiers to exhibit hyper-masculine attributes to be able to kill to protect a given state or nation. The notion of militarized masculinities demonstrates how military cultures foster an environment for the normalization of violence, especially sexual violence against women and girls, as a tool of control or domination that soldiers believe they are entitled to during periods of conflict.

All pre-deployment training generally falls under the responsibility of the TCC with the exception of international civilian staff who must receive training from the DPKO’s Integrated Training Service (ITS) at a support base in Uganda. Police-contributing countries (PCCs) and TCCs are required to deliver training in accordance with UN standards, particularly certain sub-modules outlined in the Core Pre-Deployment Training (CPT); however, because this responsibility lies with the TCC, the UN must largely rely on certification from the TCC that the standard requirements have been met.

“Because we had money it was really easy. We just had to give money to buy something and of course they were starving so of course… that is why it’s easy, it was easy.”

- Didier Bourguet, former civilian peacekeeper, in an interview with FRONTLINE, PBS (2018).

However, pre-deployment gender training tends to rely on equipping peacekeepers with technical skills and knowledge which focuses on definitions of abuse or gender, implicitly or explicitly centred around women and girls, and policies like the zero-tolerance policy. It is crucial to note how the omission of masculinities can lead to an incomplete understanding of how and why sexual violence occurs, because it becomes unnecessary to reflect on how harmful behaviour commonly associated with masculinity can be enabled by existing gendered structures of power.

Regardless, uniformed personnel from top TCCs continue to be accepted not simply for the sake of maintaining operational capacity but might stem from the UN’s reluctance to interfere in the cultural norms of Member States. For instance, although SEA is outrightly condemned in pre-deployment training, there is a lack of critical reflection given to how cultural or traditional gender roles may inform understandings of power or sexual violence in relation to the protection and rights of vulnerable people in conflict-affected settings.

Accountability gaps

One of the most significant challenges in the prevention of SEA by peacekeepers is the lack of legal accountability that would serve as a critical punitive deterrent. Although the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) can investigate allegations of sexual misconduct, legal accountability rests exclusively with the TCC, which very rarely results in prosecution. In 2008, a French court found Didier Bourguet, a French national and former civilian peacekeeper, guilty of the rape of two girls during his posting to the Central African Republic and the DRC. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. Prosecutors initially wanted to charge him with the rape of at least 20 girls; however, there wasn’t enough evidence to secure the larger conviction. Following his release from prison, he admitted to the rapes of 20-25 girls in an interview with FRONTLINE.

The Bourguet case was significant because it had led to criminal prosecution by a TCC’s judicial system which was and continues to be a very rare occurrence when sexual misconduct is investigated. However, its publicization served a symbolic rather than a transformative legacy in advancing legal accountability for SEA, often referred to as tokenistic accountability.

The scandal that led to Bourguet’s prosecution was connected to 150 allegations of sexual misconduct that surfaced in 2004 during the stabilization mission in the DRC (MONUC). These allegations implicated 278 peacekeepers of different nationalities (including others from France) and led to 138 peacekeepers being repatriated. It is clear that the Bourguet case was the exception and not the rule, as there are no observable reports of additional French peacekeepers being criminally prosecuted, or even put on trial, during this period.

Because PKOs are constrained by the frameworks set out in Status of Missions or Forces Agreements (SOMAs/SOFAs), UN agencies are incredibly limited in their ability to prevent legal impunity. The creation and adoption of policies and institutional bodies such as the Zero-Tolerance Policy in 2004 and the Conduct and Discipline Unit (CDU) in 2006 frequently fail to make any meaningful or significant change because the final decision to pursue criminal charges lie with the responsible TCC.

Reporting barriers: internal and external SEA reporting

Victims of SEA encounter significant difficulty in reporting. Outside of the social stigma they risk facing among their local communities, reporting SEA to peacekeeping missions is seen as a futile effort as victims believe they are inherently biased and favour the accounts of peacekeepers over their own, especially considering the context in which they are living (e.g. if they cannot rely upon the abilities of local law enforcement).

Even when reports are filed, long periods of time pass before these cases are examined and perpetrators are held to account. Individual cases can get reduced into a statistic in the UN database, as reports are passed from desk to desk, instead of inciting public outrage each time they are reported.

Under-reporting also occurs at the internal level and remains a critical issue. In their latest personnel survey, 6,400 respondents indicated having knowledge of instances where United Nations staff/afflicted personnel engaged in transactional sex or SEA, yet only 1,105 respondents officially reported them. This demonstrates that fear of retaliation and social stigma still exist within the work culture of the UN, likely due to past incidents where whistleblowers were suspended or fired from their positions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has prioritized the Organization’s efforts to adopt a victim-centred approach in addressing SEA. In his 2017 and 2024 reports to the General Assembly, Guterres has clarified that the UN intends to focus on prioritizing the rights and dignities of victims by expediting victim support, empowerment and championing victims’ rights (raising awareness and funding). Taking a victim-centred approach not only aims to de-stigmatize reporting SEA and expedite accessibility to critical resources and services like the Victim's Trust Fund, but it also streamlines the process to achieve restorative justice in local communities, even if the UN is limited in its ability to deliver punitive justice against perpetrators

Lessons for Policy and Practice

Consider sanctions for TCCs with high incidence rates

Although the United Nations does not have the legal authority to try and prosecute peacekeepers accused of SEA, they can put pressure on TCCs that regularly have high SEA incidence rates. For instance, in 2018, Ghanaian and Nepalese peacekeepers faced allegations of SEA in South Sudan in 2018, (leading to the repatriation of 45 Ghanaian peacekeepers) yet, both countries remain among the UN’s top TCCs, and very little information is found online regarding the incident and its outcome. There is a similar pattern of repatriation, suspending payments and transferring them to the Victim’s Trust Fund (only if the investigation confirms that SEA occurred), but even when the country responsible doesn’t seek to prosecute the individuals involved, the UN doesn’t impose serious restrictions against the country’s participation (nor the amount of troops they will accept) as a TCC.

Increase collaboration with independent third parties

In many instances, victims will refuse to report incidents of SEA to the Conduct and Discipline Unit (CDU) within peacekeeping operations out of fear of retaliation or stigma from members of their communities. The UN needs to strengthen initiatives and programs, building closer relationships with civil society organizations (CSOs) whose mandates focus on the provision of mental and physical health support and services for victims of SEA in local communities where SEA is deemed a high-risk possibility.

Not only may victims find greater solidarity and trust by communicating with members of their own community to safeguard their well-being, but this can also improve data collection efforts in reporting and transparency so that CDUs are held accountable for the cases that build against their peacekeepers.

Increase funding for SEA monitoring and prevention

In February 2024, Guterres announced that WHO would be committing $50 million from its budget towards preventing SEA, allocated through a global network of staff members to oversee efforts and conduct annual risk assessments. However, receiving funding for addressing SEA can oftentimes be unpredictable or unsustainable in the long-term. The UN needs to consider establishing long-term financial commitments with TCCs, allocating resources towards developing more robust and mandatory training programs and enhancing oversight during PKOs.

Incentivize TCCs to increase levels of participation among female peacekeepers

There remains a significant imbalance in the ratio between male-to-female peacekeepers among top TCCs, which overwhelmingly constitute countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2023, the UN’s goal for the percentage of women deployed as an annual average was 20 percent. That same year, Bangladesh, the highest TCC for UN peacekeeping operations, deployed 6,771 male and 498 female uniformed personnel, falling significantly short of the UN’s target.

Greater action to reduce the gender gap may occur if the UN considers financial incentives so that TCCs allocate resources towards equipping women with the necessary training to join peacekeeping operations, with an emphasis on uniformed personnel such as troops or police. To ensure that resources are not wasted by casting a wide net of commitments with top TCCs, the UN must consider temporary commitments with TCCs that are evaluated to have the potential to grow closer to gender parity and achieve goals outlined in their respective National Action Plans (NAPs) on advancing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda.