PRESS BRIEFING ON SEXUAL EXPLOITATION ALLEGATIONS RELATED

 

TO UN MISSION IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

 

The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) had deployed a special investigative team to come up with short- and long-term strategies to deal with cases of sexual exploitation and abuse at peacekeeping missions, Jane Holl Lute, an Assistant Secretary-General in the DPKO, said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

She said the team would be composed of specialized personnel from Headquarters and MemberStates, and would include female and police investigators specializing in sex crimes.

The objective was to help ensure the completion of the investigations into the allegations, as well as to aggressively seek out other possible abuses and systematic deficiencies that had contributed to the problem.

Ms. Lute said she wanted to provide more information on the statement made by the Secretary-General last Friday on allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse at the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).  (In his statement, the Secretary-General said:  “I’m afraid there is clear evidence that acts of grave misconduct have taken place.  This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it.”)

She said the Under-Secretary-General for the DPKO had reiterated in the strongest possible terms the outrage expressed by the Secretary-General.

MONUC, which had been in existence for five years, comprised nearly a thousand international civilian staff, and 11,000 uniformed military and police personnel contributed by over 50 countries, she said.  The Mission had suffered 40 fatalities since its inception.  There had been a total of 150 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse.  The allegations fell into several categories, including criminal activities, rape and underage sex exploitation.

A number of the allegations were specific in one particular area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bunia, she continued.  They were the subject of oversight investigation whose report had yet to be issued.  While that was going on, she said a 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 and the DPKO had organized a team, which had arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today to investigate cases involving civilians.  If those investigations confirmed the basis of the allegations, additional procedures would be taken consistent with staff rules and instructions.

She said the DPKO was doing everything it could on a systematic basis to respond aggressively to the problem.  The Under-Secretary-General for the DPKO had stated publicly that the department was shining a light on the problem to determine its scope.  It would not stop there.

The Secretary-General had requested the assistance of Member States to address the problem in an active way, and had appointed Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the Permanent Representative of Jordan, as an adviser on the question of sexual exploitation.  He had begun his assignment last July, and had visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo to get a first-hand understanding of the nature of the problem, she said.  He had engaged in dialogue with a number of Member States about addressing again system-wide approaches to deal with the issue that had arisen.

In the wake of a major scandal involving humanitarian personnel at a refugee camp in West Africa in 2002, the Secretary-General had addressed a bulletin in October 2003 to all United Nations personnel clearly spelling out the specific standards of behaviour required towards local populations, especially women and children.  Additional efforts had been made by the DPKO broadly addressing the question of prevention, identification of the problem and response and discipline.  Personal conduct officers had been deployed in some peacekeeping missions such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire and Haiti.  The officers reported directly to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in charge of each mission.  The objective was to develop mission-wide strategies to prevent, identify and respond to all forms of personal misconduct.  They also played a key role in monitoring and reporting on cases.

The DPKO, in addition, also provided training materials over and above its standard code of conduct to address cases of sexual exploitation and to create a comprehensive environment for training for that purpose for contingent members and within missions, she said.  The various missions had also issued directives to all personnel clearly stating United Nations standards of conduct and the consequences for breaching them.  Complaint mechanisms had been improved by the appointment of focal points on sexual exploitation and abuse in all peacekeeping missions to make it easier for local populations to make complaints and to raise issues of concern to them.

Ms. Lute said that at Headquarters, specialized investigative capacities were being built up to assist peacekeeping operations in dealing with sexual exploitation issues.  She acknowledged that the measures they had had in place had not been adequate to deal with the changing circumstances found in some missions and to deal with the numbers of problems faced at the MONUC.  Those would be addressed again.

In a lengthy questions and answer exchange, which followed her opening remarks, Ms. Lute said that each individual allegation was looked into:  a formal enquiry into its nature was carried out to determine whether or not a formal investigation was warranted.  If so, that investigation was undertaken within the Mission.  If it was concluded that wrongdoing had occurred, disciplinary action was taken either in the context of the State of the individual concerned or in conformity with United Nations staff rules and procedures.  The Bunia investigation had been launched principally because of the concentrated nature of the allegations made there.  The MONUC had received a number of other allegations and a formal enquiry had been conducted in each case.

She said the team being deployed by the DPKO was designed to address the systemic nature of the problem and to determine what short-term measures should be implemented immediately in the Mission.  The team would also look at longer-term initiatives necessary to ensure the successful solution to those problems.

Was anybody held accountable in the West African refugee camp allegations?  a correspondent asked.  She said she had information on that and asked the correspondent to check later with her.

Regarding allegations against the military, she said the standard practice was that a formal enquiry was conducted, and if it was concluded that further steps were necessary, that was carried forward.  The perpetrator, if found culpable, was handed over to the national authority for disciplinary action to be taken.  In the case of civilian personnel, there were basic procedures:  also a formal inquiry was conducted and if that validated the allegations, the process was carried forward.  If disciplinary action was warranted, there were administrative instructions within the United Nations system to take care of it.  In some cases, the DPKO worked with national authorities.  This included, in some cases, the repatriation of the person concerned for criminal prosecution.  Pressed further on civilian cases, she said there had been instances where three individuals had been suspended from their duties.

In response to questions, she said there was no evidence yet of organized criminal elements operating within United Nations staff perpetuating those crimes.  Formal investigations were under way, following up on earlier informal ones.  The DPKO would share any information that came to light with the press, if it was appropriate to do so.  The problem was a kind that peacekeeping missions could not afford to suppress in any way.  “These peacekeeping missions go into circumstances where populations are vulnerable, where integrity and high standards we expect of peacekeepers ought to be maintained”, she said.  There was need to “demonstrate that we are taking action to address it”.

A correspondent asked whether some alleged offenders had been found guilty.  How young were the women or the girl victims and in what area did those acts take place?  Did the supervisors in the Mission know about the offences and when did headquarters know about them?

She replied that in the American legal system, allegations were just that until the accused was proven guilty and found guilty through due process.  That process existed at Headquarters, as well, she added.

When the correspondent intimated that the Secretary-General had described those involved in the MONUC as being guilty, she said it was important for the Secretary-General’s statement last Friday to be read for what he said, and not what he did not.  The behaviour that occurred and, in that case, the repatriation of the individual concerned, was of the nature that suggested that criminal prosecution might be warranted.  On the correspondent’s other question about the timing of the event, its location and circumstances under which it took place, she said all those were elements of ongoing investigations -- the process was just beginning.

A correspondent wondered why the range of investigations referred to had not been undertaken earlier resulting in the image of peacekeepers and humanitarian workers being tarnished.  That did not mean there were no measures in place at the time to deal with those types of problems, Ms. Lute said.  What had been discovered was that those measures might not be adequate to deal with the present circumstances.  The DPKO wanted to strengthen those measures to ensure that peacekeepers, both military and civilian, were held to a high standard.

The emergence of the allegations in a West African refugee camp and similar ones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had alerted them to the fact that mechanisms that were in place -- including training of military and civilian personnel, promulgation of code of conduct and implementation of administrative instructions -- might not be sufficient to deal with the increasingly complex environment in which peacekeeping operated.

She told a questioner that the DPKO was aware that missions had disciplinary issues, and in the current environment they were going back to determine the scope of the problem.  She would not speculate on the nature of the punishment that would be imposed.  There would be cooperation with national governments in some cases.

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