The UN’s children’s agency has confessed shortcomings in its humanitarian assistance to children who accuse that they were raped and sexually assaulted by French peacekeepers in Central African Republic.
A statement by Unicef Netherlands is the first public acknowledgement of the agency’s recent failure to give support to some of the victims of alleged abuse by peacekeepers in the African nation. It comes as the aid sector and the UN face increasing scrutiny for their failings in managing internal sexual abuse by their own staff.
Unicef was given the task of overlooking the support for children who said they had been abused by peacekeepers.
But in March last year, an award-winning investigation by Swedish Television’s Uppdrag Granskning (Mission Investigate) disclosed that some of the children supposedly in the UN’s care were homeless, out of school and forced to make a living on the streets, inspite of UN assurances that they would be protected. Unicef’s representative in CAR told the programme that the children were in the agency’s assistance programme for minors and were being supported. He said he was not aware that some were on the streets.
But earlier this month – ahead of a Dutch screening of the programme – Unicef Netherlands admitted to the Dutch television programme Zembla that Unicef had failed in its duty to support some of the alleged victims. But it said that since the programme had first aired, it had taken steps to locate the children featured in the proramme and provide them with support.
Marieke van Santen, of Zembla, said she found the Swedish film “astonishing” because the children who were interviewed were known to Unicef, yet they were not being cared for.
Van Santen said: “It is quite shocking to realise that not only once but twice UN agencies have failed to help these victims.”
Some of the children Mattisson spoke to had given proof to officials investigating reports of abuse by the French Sangaris peacekeeping force, which was not part of the UN peacekeeping mission, but under UN security council control. Since then other cases of alleged sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers have ejected.
> Shiuly Akter
Unicef Admits Failings with Child Victims of Sex Abuse by Peacekeepers
