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Must Boys Be Boys? The Culture of UN Peacekeeping Missions

Peacekeeping & Sexual Exploitation Report

The Culture of UN Peacekeeping Missions

One of the problems in addressing sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping missions is the hyper-masculine culture and the tradition of silence that has evolved from this culture. The bulk of personnel in peacekeeping missions are men. As of July 2004, women represented 4.4% of civilian police and 1% of military personnel working in peacekeeping operations. As of June 2004, women constituted 27.5% of international civilian personnel serving in peacekeeping operations, up from 24% in 2002.¹⁵

“The pattern of behavior of these peacekeepers, their attitudes, justification and sexual exploitation and abuse of younger girls has much in common with the activities of the so-called ‘sex-tourist,’” wrote Paul Higate in his 2003 study on the issue.¹⁶ Many local people criticized peacekeepers for such activities. For example, a Liberian man complained to Refugees International (RI) in December 2004, “This behavior would not be acceptable in the home country of these soldiers. Why are these soldiers playing around with our children?” A Liberian woman went further to say, “These girls that [UN peacekeeping soldiers] go off with are just children. They cannot reason for themselves. They are hungry and want money for school. The peacekeepers give them that. But the peacekeepers are adults. They should act responsibly.”

In Haiti in February 2005, many Haitians told RI that they are not convinced that the UN takes the issue seriously. “The [civilian police] who patrol our neighborhood don’t do anything. They are only interested in talking to women,” said one woman who lived in Cité du Soleil, a vast urban slum in the center of Port-au-Prince. “These women are not prostitutes who talk to them but they are hungry. They will sell their bodies for money.” In Petionville, the affluent suburb where most international personnel live, prostitutes haunt the streets every evening and hang out in many of the bars frequented by UN staff. A Haitian man told us, “The restaurants that attract you international people feed the prostitution business. The Haitian National Police will do nothing about this. They are even involved!”

During RI’s three assessment missions to Liberia, it was not unusual for the teams to see foreign men at tables in the crowded restaurants of Monrovia with young Liberian women. On Sundays the beaches are crowded with international civilians cavorting with Liberian women. Gossip always runs rampant in small tight-knit communities like the expatriate community in Liberia and everyone knows which clubs have trafficked women from Morocco and Ukraine in them. Nightclubs are placed off limits by decrees from the SRSG and then new ones sprout up in private homes. The purveyors of trafficked women and sex workers always seem to be two steps ahead of the UN. In addition to the explosion of nightclubs and brothels in the capital, men meet with women in private houses to get around UN curfews and bans on establishments. “You don’t see the community in the bars in uniform like you did in DRC,” said a UN contractor in Monrovia, “But they [the peacekeepers with local women] are there—in the major hotels and in their own houses.” Assigning blame to the victims is also prevalent. According to a humanitarian worker interviewed by RI in Liberia, “Everyone here has to have a sugar daddy. You’re expected to give your girlfriend(s) money. Liberians have a different view of exploitation than we do.”

Twenty U.S. dollars will buy one of these young women for the evening. According to Haitian women’s groups, women are even cheaper in the poorer areas of Port-au-Prince. “We’ve seen an increase in prostitution since MINUSTAH came. In 1994, we had a lot of problems with the Multinational Forces. The [peacekeepers] bring their bad habits with them to Haiti, but they do not bring change,” stated a representative of a Haitian woman’s group.

The masculine culture of UN peacekeeping missions has produced a tolerance for extreme behaviors such as sexual exploitation and abuse. “What do you think is going to happen when you have thousands of men away from home?” is the common response to the media coverage of the MONUC scandal in the DRC. Solicitation of prostitutes by men in post-conflict countries is treated as commonplace and not deemed worthy of comment. When male peacekeepers were asked how they felt about the zero contact policy in Haiti, many of those whom RI interviewed laughed. A Brazilian peacekeeper told RI, “We are men. It is very difficult. But I am able to go across the border to the Dominican Republic on the weekends.” [This is presumably to solicit prostitutes legally, many of whom, ironically are Haitian women who have been trafficked to the other side of this island.]

While this report is not the place for an analysis of the ability of men to control their sexual urges while serving in the military, the “boys will be boys” attitude will continue to taint the debate until approaches to sexual exploitation are changed to reflect the fact that sexual exploitation and abuse is a problem of misuse of power and infractions meriting disciplinary action rather than a matter of consensual sexual relations between equal partners.

In traditionally male dominated environments, such as police departments, militaries, and fraternities, there is a tradition of the “wall of silence” or a bond that protects the members inside from accusations, whether true or not, from outside. “The general attitude of the military contingents in Bunia [in the DRC] has been one of trying to protect their national honor from any accusation of sexual misconduct,” states an internal UN report. “[MONUC personnel] expressed the view that the military was being discriminated against and unfairly targeted because they claimed that civilian staff were doing the same things and not getting the same level of scrutiny. International civilian staff were reluctant to report sexual misconduct by colleagues because they fear being stigmatized and punished as ‘whistle-blowers’, especially because prostitution including child prostitution and exploitation of Congolese women employees is so widespread.”¹⁷

The numbers of reported allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers is still quite low, even since the scandals became public in DRC. The culture of solidarity and fear of recrimination, combined with the UN’s failure to take sexual harassment claims by its own personnel seriously in the past, has had the effect of suppressing reporting of abuses within the UN system.* “We cannot get them to report problems to us,” complained a member of MINUSTAH. “They still see this as something that they can handle within their own teams—a culture of boys protecting boys. We have more support from New York now but it is a hard culture to crack.”

In Liberia, UNMIL employees were reluctant to report suspicious behavior to the staff member, or “focal point,” in charge of receiving complaints around sexual exploitation. “They do not see this as a major problem compared to some of the other things going wrong in this country,” she said to RI in 2004. The gender advisor in Sierra Leone who was in charge of educating incoming personnel about sexual exploitation and abuse confirmed this. “They see this [sexual exploitation and abuse policy] as a UN thing—not anything that they truly buy into.” In fact, the “zero contact” policy in Haiti has led to increased complaints of sexual harassment by UN female personnel, both local and international, claims one MINUSTAH employee. Combined with the reluctance of victims to lodge official reports, this wall of silence has hampered the UN’s ability to investigate the allegations and fully understand the extent of the problem.

The Zeid report acknowledges the existence of the masculine culture of UN peacekeeping missions. “The presence of more women in a mission, especially at senior levels, will help to promote an environment that discourages sexual exploitation and abuse, particularly of the local population.”¹⁸ The problems with the low numbers of women have been well documented and member states bear the responsibility for putting forward more women for peacekeeping missions in both civilian and military positions. For many countries, the low number of women in their police forces limits how many they can send to peacekeeping missions, but European and North American countries are not as restricted. Some African countries such as The Gambia (which contributed four female members to missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia) and Zambia have managed to find qualified female police officers to send on peacekeeping missions. However, the United States, where 10% of officers are women, was unable to send any women in the contingent of 77 civilian police (CIVPOL) initially sent to Liberia in 2004. The number of police officers has since been reduced even further to 35 civilian police, none of whom are women.⁺

A senior CIVPOL official in Liberia told RI that CIVPOL’s number one problem was “a very low percentage of females.” He has communicated to DPKO that Liberia is underrepresented by women and wants more candidates. He told RI, “If CIVPOL is going to emulate the principles of progressive policing, we need more women police officers.” For a country like Liberia, where more than 60% of the population has experienced gender-based violence, it is essential to have female police officers. Rape survivors suffer severe physical, emotional and social trauma, making it critical to have women peacekeeping officers, along with rape specialists, to create a comfortable atmosphere in which women can access treatment and council. In many cultures, women are forbidden to interact with males to whom they are not related, limiting access to treatment and care if women officers are not present. RI also found that the sexual exploitation scandals in DRC have created additional distrust among the local population towards male peacekeepers. Despite this stated need and very vocal public policies of the UN on systematically incorporating gender perspectives into its missions, the recruitment system for CIVPOL officers continues to neglect the specific targeting of women for recruitment.

Recruiting more women into UN military forces and police is not a solution that can be readily implemented, given the small numbers of women in most militaries and the difficulties that women often face in taking UN positions abroad. RI interviewed female peacekeeping members in Liberia and Haiti about the low numbers of women in missions. “It is difficult for me to leave my husband and child,” said one female Nigerian CIVPOL officer. “I am lucky because my family supports me and my husband is very progressive. He is also a policeman and he knows that this work is important. However, it is difficult because I cannot afford to fly home to Nigeria to see them very often.” Further, adding women personnel does not guarantee elimination of the conditions that allow sexual exploitation and abuse to flourish. Sexual exploitation and abuse are primarily problems of abuse of power and only secondarily problems of sexual behavior. It is more akin to corruption. One’s sex does not determine whether one will abuse power relations.^§

*The forced resignation of Ruud Lubbers, former UN High Commissioner of Refugees is a welcome and hopeful positive change to this attitude. Lubbers was accused of sexual harassment by an employee and although charges were not pressed, many believe that this is what led to his eventual resignation.

⁺The Department of State contracts out its hiring of CIVPOL officers to a private firm. In April of 2004, this company was Dyncorp. When questioned, Dyncorp claimed that one female officer was recruited but was unable to pass the psychological component of the training required to be deployed.

^§The Abu Ghraib prison abuses in Iraq involving female US Army soldiers demonstrate this misconception powerfully.

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