Allegations of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Operations: the cases of MONUSCO, MINUSMA and MINUSCA

Abstract

Peace Operations have been used as a tool in the United Nations to achieve peace and security in vulnerable areas since the late 1940s. With these missions come the peacekeepers, personnel chosen by the organisation or sent by their troop-contributing countries to work in the missions to achieve their goals stipulated by their mandate through the UN Security Council resolutions. Due to the nature of the operations, peacekeepers and locals are often in contact with each other, which can lead to sexual encounters. However, these circumstances do not always happen as mutual agreement, and many peacekeepers commit sexual exploitation and abuse violations, taking advantage of their position as a UN officer which can provide money and food to the vulnerable civilian in exchange for them to fulfil their sexual needs. What is noteworthy on this issue is that there are significant variances from one mission to the other - where one such as MONUSCO has more than 100 allegations recorded and others such as MINUSMA do not reach to 30 allegations recorded. Therefore, this study wanted to understand to what extent the sexual exploitation and abuse violations by peacekeepers can affect the effectiveness of the mission and jeopardise its quest to achieve peace and security in the territory they are deployed....