Sexual abuse and rape by soldiers ... "U.N. misconduct"

March 25, 2005 | The reputation of United Nations peacekeeping missions suffered a humiliating blow Thursday as an internal report identified repeated patterns of sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by soldiers supposed to be restoring the international rule of law. The highly critical study, published by Jordan's ambassador to the U.N. General Assembly, was endorsed by the organization's embattled secretary-general, Kofi Annan, who condemned such "abhorrent acts" as a "violation of the fundamental duty of care."

The embarrassment caused by the misconduct of U.N. forces in devastated communities around the world -- including Haiti, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Cambodia, East Timor and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) -- has become an increasingly high-profile, political problem.

Allegations have recently surfaced that troops sent to police Liberia were regularly having sex with girls as young as age 12, sometimes in the mission's administrative buildings. In the DRC, peacekeepers were said to have offered abandoned orphans small gifts -- as little as two eggs from their rations, says the report -- for sexual encounters. Used condoms, an inquiry by the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services discovered, littered the perimeter of military camps and guard posts.

Alarm about the involvement of U.N. peacekeepers in sex trafficking first arose during the 1990s when investigators found soldiers were customers in brothels run in Bosnia and Kosovo that relied on women sold into forced prostitution. One recent estimate suggested up to 2,000 women have been coerced into sex slavery in Kosovo.

Thursday's report, by Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, was commissioned to reform the way in which troops behave on U.N. missions. It was also aimed at devising a new investigative framework to detect and deter soldiers exploiting young victims, who are often impoverished refugees.

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/03/25/un_peacekeepers/print.html

I think ... though that one may be older. Where there is war..there are industries that link to war. And rapes & exploitation too.

The problem is war.