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Must Boys Be Boys? Training Troops

Peacekeeping & Sexual Exploitation Report

Training Peacekeeping Troops

Training of UN peacekeeping troops must go beyond the initial training they receive when they enter the UN peacekeeping mission. To ensure that troops understand the concepts of sexual exploitation and abuse, training must take into consideration their own cultural and linguistic norms.

One of the most common suggestions for addressing sexual exploitation and abuse and mainstreaming gender within peacekeeping missions is providing training to the troops. Just as success in battle is dependent on leadership, training and discipline, these elements, particularly pre- and post-deployment training, are also critical to reducing or eliminating some of the problems associated with troop deployments. According to the UN training documents, “Peacekeepers represent the UN and are present in the mission area to help recovery from the trauma of conflict. As a result, they must consciously be prepared to accept social constraints in their public and private lives in order to do the work and to pursue the ideals of the UN.”³² In countries with large numbers of traumatized civilians—including trauma from gender-based violence and other atrocities—the willingness of peacekeepers to “accept social constraints” is particularly important. The civilian and military chains of command must demonstrate, by their own conduct and by their aggressive enforcement of policies, that actions contrary to good order and discipline will not be tolerated and that people will be held accountable.

When peacekeepers are deployed to an area of conflict, it is expected that peacekeepers in these countries will have a positive impact, as they have been sent to preserve peace and protect civilians. Military troop contingents are trained by professionals in military subjects such as tactics, rules of engagement and marksmanship. However, peacekeeping troops arrive in country with different levels of readiness. Training on UN universal mandates such as mainstreaming gender and enforcement of human rights should be mandatory and should be approached with the same seriousness that other military training is given. While training for peacekeeping troops should focus on conditions and behaviors appropriate to the theater of operations, it should begin in the troop-contributing country. Refugees International interviewed UN staff in Liberia who said, “Peacekeepers bring their attitude with them from their home countries when they come here and will bring new attitudes back home with them.”

Each contributing country has its own culture and mores, its own attitudes toward alcohol, women, sex and its own thoughts about what constitutes “proper behavior.” For example, Pakistani peacekeepers bought bras to cover Sierra Leonean women’s breasts in the areas around where they were deployed because they were shocked to see them working bare-breasted and felt it was not proper.³³ While the deployment of troops from similar cultures within the region may be one solution, this may also compromise neutrality in the case of regional conflicts such as in West Africa.

According to the trainers that RI spoke to in West Africa, there is very little pre-deployment training on non-technical issues, such as preventing sexual exploitation and abuse. A UN official in charge of providing training for new peacekeepers in Sierra Leone said, “These ideas are new to them. They see these concepts as a UN thing and foreign to their own experience. It is something that they have to do while in the employ of the UN but they do not see it as relevant to their own cultures.” UNAMSIL tried sending a trainer to donor countries to train soldiers but this practice was discontinued. Although DPKO has insisted that if the missions want to send trainers to troop contributing countries for this purpose, they will be supported, this is not a sustainable plan. As discussed above, those charged with sensitizing the staff in these peacekeeping missions are already short-handed and over-extended. To combat the problem in MONUC, the UN has begun sending trainers to the countries of troops that will be deployed in DRC, but they are not doing this for all of the other peacekeeping missions.

While there have been some advances in military training to include gender concepts, codes of conduct, legal issues, interactions with the community, and sexual exploitation and abuse, these advances have not completely reached militaries who contribute troops to UN peacekeeping missions. A worthy example to follow is that of the Centro Conjunto Para Operaciones de Paz de Chile (CECOPAC), the Chilean peacekeeping training institute that uses the UN Standardized Training Modules and conducts gender awareness training. Regional peacekeeping institutes such as the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Ghana and the Argentine Joint Peacekeeping Operation Training Center (CAECOPAZ) should also incorporate UN curriculum on gender mainstreaming and donors should expand their use in order to support troop-contributing countries. The African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, a U.S. partnership with African militaries that strengthens peacekeeping and peace enforcement, should also strive to include UN guidelines on sexual exploitation and abuse in its curricula, as well as mainstreaming gender throughout its programs.

If troop-contributing countries are serious about combating these problems in their militaries, they should work more closely with women’s groups from their own country to incorporate culturally appropriate curricula into their military training programs. “Guidelines from a national army are stronger and more effective than UN guidelines,” acknowledged a member of the Ghanaian army who had previously served as a peacekeeper. Troops from cultures quite different from the countries in which they are deployed must also interact with local women’s groups to ensure that there are no misunderstandings about behavior.

All UN personnel, whether civilian or military, go through an induction training upon arrival in country that familiarizes them with UN operating procedures. While this training covers the issues of sexual exploitation and the UN’s approach to gender, it’s unclear whether or not it is effective. This training covers everything from the codes of conduct to human resources issues. According to one UNMIL employee, “It’s too intensive. You get bombarded with information and it happens right after you’ve been traveling. It’s hard to remember anything that came out of it.”

Additionally, depending on the mission, many of the troops do not necessarily attend the same training. Language acts as a barrier within missions as usually only the commanding officers speak the “mission language” of English or French. Most of the troops speak only their native tongue. So, it is up to the commanding officers to ensure that the induction training is carried out. In order to facilitate training of troops, DPKO has published standardized training modules, to provide guidelines on all aspects identified as “basic universal training requirements” for United Nations peacekeepers, including one on gender.³⁴ But it often depends upon the different contingent commanders whether the material is translated into their own language and what amount of training is provided to the troops. It is also unclear whether training is repeated and reinforced throughout the period of their deployment and what, if any, assessments have been done to see what impact these trainings have.

The UN has expectations of its staff that are spelled out in the UN Codes of Conduct (see Annex). Written and clear codes of conduct are a necessary starting point for defining expected behavior. But they are not an end in themselves. According to one UN employee, “Rules must be clear. You have to ask how sensitized employees are. It’s one thing to have a code of conduct. It’s another to have someone sit down and talk you through it—regularly. You need a clear structure on how to handle complaints and a system that ensures accountability.”

When RI asked military and civilian leaders in Liberia about troop conduct, they all pointed out that troops were issued cards printed with the UN Code of Conduct, which they carried with them at all times. But when RI asked those leaders and troops to see their cards, not a single person could produce one. Further, even if a card were being carried, it doesn’t mean the person really understands what is expected. UN staff, NGO staff, and the local population themselves were uncertain about what constituted code of conduct violations, how to report them, and if perpetrators were ever punished.

Refugees International therefore recommends that:

Training on UN universal mandates such as gender mainstreaming and enforcement of human rights should be mandatory for civilian and military personnel;
DPKO must ensure that training on gender concepts and human rights is carried out by bona fide trainers with expertise on the subject matter;
Donors fund regional peacekeeping training centers to mainstream gender into all their trainings and provide training on sexual exploitation and abuse prevention for troop-contributing countries;
DPKO should conduct an evaluation to determine what messages resonate with peacekeepers and the effectiveness of their trainings;
Militaries from troop-contributing countries actively work with local women’s groups in their own countries to design culturally appropriate responses to mainstreaming gender and combating and combating sexual exploitation and abuse;
Country commanders train their troops using country-specific training modules and verify completion of training in writing to the Force Commander;
Military commanders and civilian personnel supervisors follow up and continually emphasize training on sexual exploitation and abuse.