What we did to Haiti is absolutely disgusting... We should rain down 57 tomahawks on the UN
'I did not even have breasts': Haitian girl forced to have sex with nearly 50 UN workers as part of child sex ring involving at least 134 peacekeepershttp://archive.is/xfzJe#selection-435.0-435.150A rape victim has told how she was forced to have sex with UN workers who were supposed to be on a peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
The young woman, known only as Victim Number One, recounted her harrowing story to UN investigators - detailing how she was forced to have sex with some 50 peacekeepers from the age of 12 until she was 15.
She said one 'Commandant' gave her 75 cents to have sex - adding it was during a time when she 'didn't even have breasts'.
The disturbing internal UN report uncovered abuse which was rife in Haiti between 2004 and 2007. At least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers exploited nine children as young as 12 in a sex ring, offering them cookies and snacks in return for sex.
In the wake of the report, 114 peacekeepers were sent home thought none were imprisoned.
'I did not even have breasts,' said a girl, known as V01 - Victim No. 1. Sometimes she slept in U.N. trucks on the base next to the decaying resort, whose once-glamorous buildings were being overtaken by jungle.
Justice for victims like V01 is rare. An Associated Press investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel around the world - signaling the crisis is much larger than previously known. More than 300 of the allegations involved children, the AP found, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time.
Legally, the U.N. is in a bind. It has no jurisdiction over peacekeepers, leaving punishment to the countries that contribute the troops.
The AP interviewed alleged victims, current and former U.N. officials and investigators and sought answers from 23 countries on the number of peacekeepers who faced such allegations and, what if anything, was done to investigate. With rare exceptions, few nations responded to repeated requests, while the names of those found guilty are kept confidential, making accountability impossible to determine.
Without agreement for widespread reform and accountability from the U.N.'s member states, solutions remain elusive.
In March, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced new measures to tackle sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel.
'Let us declare in one voice: We will not tolerate anyone committing or condoning sexual exploitation and abuse. We will not let anyone cover up these crimes with the U.N. flag,' Guterres said.
But the proclamation had a depressingly familiar ring: More than a decade ago, the United Nations commissioned a report that promised to do much the same thing, yet most of the reforms never materialized.
For a full two years after those promises were made, the children in Haiti were passed around from soldier to soldier. And in the years since, peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse the world over.
In one particularly grim case in Haiti, a teenage boy said he was gang-raped in 2011 by Uruguayan peacekeepers who filmed the alleged assault on a cellphone. Dozens of Haitian women also say they were raped, and dozens more had what is euphemistically called 'survival sex' in a country where most people live on less than $2.50 a day, the AP found.
Haitian lawyer Mario Joseph has been trying to get compensation for victims of a deadly cholera strain linked to Nepalese peacekeepers that killed an estimated 10,000 people. Now, he is also trying to get child support for about a dozen Haitian women left pregnant by peacekeepers.
'Imagine if the U.N. was going to the United States and raping children and bringing cholera,' Joseph said in Port-au-Prince. 'Human rights aren't just for rich white people.'
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker agrees. The Tennessee Republican, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been calling for reforms in the United Nations. He may well get them under President Donald Trump, whose administration has proposed a 31 percent reduction to the U.S. foreign aid and diplomacy budget. Corker and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley want a review of all missions.
Corker recalled his disgust at hearing of the U.N. sexual abuse cases uncovered last year in Central African Republic.
'If I heard that a U.N. peacekeeping mission was coming near my home in Chattanooga,' he told AP, 'I'd be on the first plane out of here to go back and protect my family.'
