In the ruins of a tropical hideaway where jetsetters once sipped rum under the Caribbean sun, the abandoned children tried to make a life for themselves. The men who came from a far-away place and spoke a strange language offered the Haitian children cookies and other snacks. Sometimes they gave them a few dollars. But the price was high: The Sri Lankan peacekeepers wanted sex from girls and boys as young as Justice for victims like V01 is rare.
More than of the allegations involved children, the AP found, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time. It has no jurisdiction over peacekeepers, leaving punishment to the countries that contribute the troops. 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 UN's member states, solutions remain elusive. In the wake of the report, peacekeepers were sent home. None was ever imprisoned. 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 materialised. 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 response to the AP's investigation, the UN's head of field support said Wednesday the international body was aware of shortcomings in the system.
Mr Khare also said the organisation was working with member states to hold perpetrators to account. In one particularly grim case in Haiti, a teenage boy said he was gang-raped in by Uruguayan peacekeepers who filmed the alleged assault on a cellphone. 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, people.
