Submitted by Robin on
Review of the updated UN response to sexual violence by peacekeepers in 2017
1. Summary
The latest report by the UN Secretary-General in response to sexual violence by peacekeepers is intended to provide the biggest shake-up of UN policy on sexual violence prevention in years. It outlines a “new” strategy that focuses on four main areas of action; putting victims first, ending impunity, engaging civil society and external partners, and improving strategic communications for education and transparency. The recommendations in this report were formulated by a high-level task-force of high-ranking UN officials, set up by the new Secretary-General in January 2017.
Few of the initiatives presented in this latest report can be classified as actually new measures. Many of them have been mentioned or proposed previously, and some of them seem relatively well rehearsed, not a surprise considering this issue first surfaced when sexual violence incidents by peacekeepers were surfaced in 2001. This “new approach” as proposed by the new Secretary-General re-focuses the UN approach, rather than reinventing it. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not appear to be the “game-changing” strategies that the Secretary-General intended.
2. Number of allegations and reasons for sexual violence in peacekeeping
Sixty-five allegations of sexual violence involving civilians on peacekeeping missions were reported in 2016, while 80 allegations were made against uniformed personnel. From these 145 allegations, there are 311 reported victims, the vast majority being women and girls. The
report notes there are many more allegations that go unreported. In explaining the proliferation of this problem within the UN system, the report highlighted
several factors:
● Unequal gender relations;
● Weakly enforced standards with respect to civilian hiring;
● Little to no system-wide screening of candidates for prior history of related
misconduct;
● Ignorance of the values and rules UN;
● A lack of uniform and systematic training across all categories of personnel;
● Weak civilian or uniformed leadership that fails to reinforce conduct and discipline;
● Impunity among perpetrators;
● Insufficient attention and a lack of sustained efforts on the part of the senior UN leadership and States until provoked by crisis;
3. Key recommendations
Victims
The report states that the new UN approach will now be “victim focused”. The Secretary-General has called for a new human rights expert who will be an advocate for victims’ rights who will be at the Assistant Secretary-General level. The aim of this role is to ensure that victims receive appropriate care, appropriate follow-up attention, and information on the progress of cases.
This new role will be supported by a small secretariat and will work to ensure that reliable pathways exist for victims or witnesses to file complaints and that assistance is rapidly and sensitively delivered. The position will work with local authorities and NGOs to ensure that victims’ rights are protected through access to appropriate and timely judicial processes. The victims’ rights advocate will also work with external experts, advocates and leading aid organisations to inform the development of policies and tools to strengthen support to victims.
Suspension of payments and trust fund
The report calls for the payment of fees to a troop, or police contributing country for their peacekeepers to be suspended when a State has been found to be failing in investigating allegations in a timely manner. This money is to be put into the already established Trust Fund to assist the victims of sexual violence. Though withholding reimbursement payments would be a powerful, symbolic action, the withholding of payments from States would need to be approved by the UN’s General Assembly. It seems highly unlikely that States would agree to this measure.
Currently, the Trust Fund cannot be used to provide direct compensation to victims, instead it can only be used to provide aid, food and shelter. However, the Secretary-General will be revising the terms of reference of the Trust Fund to permit direct assistance payments to include, for example, enabling victims to attend trials. This proposal of suspending payments to States has also been brought up in previous Secretary-General reports, and there is little evidence that States will support implementation.
Gender equality
This report places considerable emphasis on the need for gender equality in UN positions. A task-force on Gender Parity and Equality in the UN System, established at the start of the new SG’s term will work closely with the leadership throughout the UN in formulating its priorities for action. The idea is that by increasing the proportion of female peacekeepers in missions, sexual violence can be reduced. While this is a noble aspiration, this will ultimately require a more fundamental changing of the culture in peacekeeping missions. Evidence suggests women in peacekeeping missions often have little power, face discrimination, and are selected for particular gendered roles.
Reporting allegations
A standardised incident reporting form developed by the office of the Special Coordinator for improving the Organisation's response to sexual exploitation and abuse, will be rolled out and will help to ensure that all parts of the UN system gather the same information and present it in the same way. This will improve both data collection, investigation and reporting and can be seen as an extension of proposals made in previous Secretary-General reports.
Other measures included in the report include asking UN resident coordinators and the Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public information to work with the victims rights advocate to strengthen complaint mechanisms and outreach strategies.
Vetting, pre-deployment and deployment measures
Information on the UN's rules and regulations including on sexual violence will be added to all UN job postings. A measure for peacekeepers to carry “no excuse” cards, which was proposed in a previous Secretary-General report, will be rolled out along with contact information of how witnesses and victims can report allegations. The report also notes that there will be more enhanced screening of job candidates to find out whether they have outstanding allegations against them, a call for States to voluntarily undertake DNA testing of peacekeepers to assist investigations and the certification of pre-deployment training for every individual as a precondition to deployment. Other new proposals for during deployment include a prohibition on alcohol and a policy of non-fraternisation.
Whistleblower policy
The report notes the UN will implement a new whistleblower policy which has recently been developed. While some commentators have welcomed the new policy, there is little to suggest that whistleblowers will be that much better protected from retaliation from inside the UN than they were previously. The Government Accountability Project has suggested a further measure, that the Secretary-General create a UN Special Advisor on whistleblowing, not associated with the current Ethics office or any other UN mechanisms.
Coordinator on improving the UN response to sexual exploitation and abuse. The report provides a strong critique of how the previous UN administration dealt with sexual violence. The Secretary-General has extended the post of Special Coordinator on improving the UN response to sexual exploitation and abuse, currently held by Jane Holl Lute, to oversee the implementation of UN measures. The report talks of establishing a ‘circle of leadership’ comprising of heads of state to support the UN’s work on sexual violence, however, there are few details on their role and what they’ll do. In addition to the new Assistant Secretary-General for victims’ rights, there will be new high-ranking officials with oversight roles placed in the four peacekeeping missions with the most allegations of sexual violence (CAR, DRC, Haiti, and S.Sudan). The Special Coordinator will oversee a
system-wide consolidated confidential repository of case information. The repository will build on the Misconduct Tracking System developed by Department for Field Support, and will ensure information is appropriately tracked, and safeguard victims rights to privacy and
confidentiality.
3. Investigations
The report calls for the creation of specialist sexual violence investigators to enable a better response to allegations. These investigators will include particular expertise in forensic analysis, sexual crimes and the special needs of children.
Role of civil-society
The report calls for a new special advisory board to be developed. The functions of this board will include making recommendations to strengthen preventive measures against sexual violence, reviewing mission and country team risk assessments and best practice, as well as tracking the UN’s performance. The board will report to the Secretary-General who will invite a number of civil society leaders to join the board who will serve for a two-year term.
5. Unresolved problems
Criminal accountability
As with previous Secretary-General reports, ensuring the criminal accountability of individuals who have had substantiated claims made against them remains an unresolved issue. Troop-contributing countries remain responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by soldiers while serving in peacekeeping missions. For allegations against non-military individuals, these will continue to be handed administratively by the UN. In these cases, an individual can be demoted or dismissed but there will not be criminal charges.
The report renews the call for States to explore extending extraterritorial jurisdictions over crimes that may have been committed by individuals when assigned to the UN and urges States to conclude discussions on the adoption of an international criminal convention, which may include amending national legislation to permit extraterritorial jurisdiction. This has been reiterated in successive Secretary-General reports and has been an area of debate for over a decade. Despite the longstanding option of an international convention for crimes committed in peacekeeping operations, a proper legal framework has not yet been created to address this issue effectively. In this latest report, the matter is not sufficiently developed and there is no indication that States have the will to implement this. Ultimately, it is easier for it to remain the responsibility of States, rather than the UN.
Future UN funding
UN diplomats and observers believe DPKO will be a main target for the US to scale back its UN funding. It currently funds 30% of the $8 billion budget. This could be a crucial factor as to why there is hesitation on the part of the UN around being tough on States. Many troop and police contributing countries felt that the recent enhanced transparency about the alleged perpetrators was a “naming and shaming” ploy against them. With peacekeeping being so dependent on a small number of States for its personnel, this may be an additional factor as to why the Secretary-General is hesitant to bring through tougher measures on States.
Non-binding obligations
Many of the proposed obligations for States mentioned are part of what the Secretary-General calls a new "compact" with States. However, these are voluntary and non-binding.
6. UN and States obligations listed in Annex III of A/71818
UN obligations:
- (i) Identify and launch a systematic mechanism to share and publicise the Member States’ best practices and lessons learned;
- (ii) Foster and encourage capacity-building and learning on ways to combat sexual exploitation and abuse, including by facilitating bilateral cooperation on best
practices;
- (iii) Identify specific measures to improve the living and working conditions of persons and units, particularly those deployed in remote and austere locations;
- (iv) Require individuals assigned to all UN field-based activities to carry the “no excuses” card that restates the rules and provides contact details for reporting
allegations;
- (v) Explore modalities to recognise excellence in leadership and in conduct and discipline;
- (vi) Review and propose changes to the rules governing the award of the UN medal to strengthen pride in UN operations;
- (vii) Integrate regional peacekeeping training centres more consistently into the predeployment phase of UN operations, and examine ways to use those centres to
prepare future leaders in the field;
Member States obligations:
Prevention
- (i) Aim to deploy only commanders with prior peacekeeping experience and require them to develop specific plans and programmes for the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse while deployed;
- (ii) Agree to policies and procedures, drawn from best practice, to ensure more effective oversight of company and smaller single-nation units deployed in remote
mission areas, for example clear, enforceable boundaries between military compounds and local populations and supervised visits in groups during off-duty periods, drawing on Member State best practice and lessons learned;
Victims’ assistance
- (iii) Commit to full cooperation with the victims’ rights advocate;
- (iv) Appoint focal points in capitals to serve as a direct liaison for victims, to address potential paternity claims and to assist the UN to follow up on cases;
- (v) Identify and take measures for the protection of victims and witnesses during investigations and judicial proceedings;
- (vi) Consider and set in place protocols to ensure child and victim sensitive investigations and make provisions for the special status of children;
-(vii) Ensure that all appropriate disciplinary and judicial decisions and remedies are enforced;
(viii) Agree to report regularly on the implementation of the compact
Investigations
- (ix) Commit to joint investigations with the UN or with independent, external experts so as to enhance transparency;
- (x) Impose penalties on those who knowingly fail to report allegations;
- (xi) Commit to implementing strong policies on whistleblowing that encourage the reporting of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse and enforce appropriate
protections for whistleblowers;
- (xii) Agree to in situ courts martial or permit their live-streaming to enable victims access to criminal proceedings;
- (xiii) Agree to obtain DNA, on a voluntary basis, from all deployed personnel for purposes of exoneration or conviction of individuals accused of sexual exploitation
and abuse, where such evidence would be indispensable;
- (xiv) Ensure that national investigative officers have the relevant expertise in investigating sexual exploitation and abuse to elevate the effectiveness of those officers in joint investigations, and, when possible, have the officers report directly to national prosecutors;
- (xv) Suspend payments due to alleged perpetrators in the face of credible allegations and agree to the implementation of procedures to withhold reimbursements in the event that investigations are not undertaken, reported on, or concluded in a timely
manner;
- (xvi) Implement procedures, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 70/286, to transfer withheld payments to the Trust Fund in substantiated cases;
- (xvii) Undertake to provide monthly updates on all phases of investigations;
Accountability
- (xviii) Agree to exercise or establish extraterritorial jurisdiction for crimes committed by civilian personnel when assigned to the UN or when operating under UN authority;
- (xix) Agree to repatriate, at national or personal expense, personnel who do not demonstrate adherence to the prohibitions on sexual exploitation and abuse;
- (xx) Commit to disciplining personnel who are repatriated in accordance with their national disciplinary procedures;
- (xxi) Agree to hold leaders in the chain of command accountable, as appropriate, when they fail to establish appropriate conditions to prevent sexual exploitation and
abuse, fail to report sexual exploitation and abuse, or fail to hold personnel in their chains of command appropriately accountable;
- (xxii) Ensure that mechanisms are in place to ensure accountability even in situations where culpable individuals have left national service;
- (xxiii) Agree to report regularly on the implementation of the compact.
7. Timeline of actions since 2016
January 2017
- SG António Guterres appoints a task force to improve the UN’s approach to responding to sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions.
September 2016
- Online training programme on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse launched which will be mandatory for all uniformed and civilian personnel.
July 2016
- National investigation officers embedded in military contingents, to ensure that investigations into allegations involving their personnel start in a timely manner.
June 2016
- General Assembly approves the measure that money withheld in substantiated cases of sexual exploitation and abuse can be transferred to the Trust Fund for victims.
May 2016
- Vetting carried out of military contingents and formed police units for prior misconduct.
March 2016
- Launched a Trust Fund to support victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. Member States were urged to make voluntary financial contributions to the Trust Fund. The contributions will be used to engage in community outreach and addressing service gaps in providing medical, legal and psychosocial assistance to victims and children born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse.
March 2016
- Security Council adopted resolution 2272 (2016), calling for the repatriation of units when there is credible evidence of widespread sexual violence by that unit.
February 2016
- Jane Holl Lute appointed
- Report of the Secretary-General includes information on the nationality of implicated uniformed personnel.
December 2015
- The report on the response of the UN’s handling of sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers condemns the conduct of high-ranking UN officials and the grave
failures of the UN’s response.
September 2015
- Seven peacekeepers serving in the Central African Republic were repatriated, while nine had their payments suspended.
June 2015
- Former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed an external independent review panel of experts to investigate the response of the UN to the allegations of sexual abuse in the Central African Republic.