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Must Boys Be Boys? Civilian Personnel

Peacekeeping & Sexual Exploitation Report

Focusing on Civilian Personnel

The focus on problems of sexual exploitation and abuse by military factions of UN peacekeeping missions has made it easy to overlook the abuse by civilian personnel. Abuse by civilian personnel must also be investigated and addressed.

According to the Zeid Report, in recent investigations of sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping missions worldwide, DPKO received 25 allegations against civilians and civilian police as compared to 80 against military personnel.³⁰ While the numbers imply that there is a larger problem with military personnel, the reality may be different. UN military personnel are readily recognized as they are usually in uniform, while civilians are more difficult to identify.

In the nightclubs of Monrovia, civilian personnel socialize with Liberian members of their organizations and with Liberian friends. It is impossible for an outsider to determine if the young well-dressed Liberian woman at the table of 16 expatriate men is a friend or an exploited woman. According to the Zeid Report, the majority of the sexual exploitation and abuse came in the form of “sex for food” with some being “rape disguised as prostitution.” But the majority of the complaints heard in the field are of expatriate men, both UN employees and others, carrying on inappropriate relationships with local women. This problem was particularly on display in Liberia. “There is a man who lives next door to me,” said one UN employee. “He has a different young girl over at his house every day. But I cannot prove that he does not treat them well or that he is having sex with them. It is only speculation. How can you investigate speculation?”

Expatriates in Liberia complain about the particularly aggressive prostitutes that target UN employees. Members of international humanitarian agencies in Liberia were concerned about the proliferation of Liberian women hanging around UNMIL checkpoints and tried to bring up their concerns with UNMIL. “They want us to give them a name, to tell them who to pursue. But this is not my job. I don’t work for UNMIL and I’m not an investigator,” said one agency. This sentiment was echoed by both of the Sexual Exploitation Focal Points in UNMIL. “It’s hard for me to follow up on the information I receive. How am I supposed to react to a report that says, ‘I saw a Bangladeshi man at the beach taking pictures of little girls?’” The Zeid report specifically addresses this problem saying, “Managers must realize that non-specific allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse cannot be ignored. Such allegations may be an early warning of real abuse.”³¹ This is particularly the case with civilian personnel as, generally, RI found that the bulk of the complaints in Monrovia and Petionville were about civilian personnel.

In reality, it is easier to discipline military personnel in peacekeeping missions than civilians. While there are clearly defined chains of command in the military, the multiplicity of civilian agencies and personnel in these missions makes investigating and punishing them difficult. “The problem with civilians is you don’t have that same kind of command structure over them,” said a member of DPKO. “That’s where the most difficult work is going to be.” Political officers, public affairs workers, administrators and other civilians are not subject to such discipline. UN officials are still searching for more effective ways of enforcing a stated “zero-tolerance” policy. The Zeid report addresses this issue by recommending that the General Assembly amend the Staff Regulations to specifically provide that acts of sexual exploitation and abuse constitute serious misconduct. Additionally, it recommends that appointments of civilian police or military observers and contracts for any other civilian personnel (such as UN Volunteers or the many private security firm contractors who provide military observers and civilian police) be terminated if they are guilty of sexual exploitation and abuse.

At present, training in gender issues and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse is neither standardized nor compulsory for civilian personnel. It is essential that such training become mandatory. In addition, the Secretary-General must not hesitate to waive immunity for any civilian who is determined to have violated staff regulations about sexual exploitation and abuse.

Refugees International therefore recommends that:

The Secretary-General appoint a group of experts to review UN personnel rules and recommend ways to ensure that loopholes that allow civilian personnel to avoid prosecution be tightened;
The UN amend Staff Regulations to specifically provide that acts of sexual exploitation and abuse constitute serious misconduct.