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This Is Unacceptable: How the UN Falls Short in Responding to Alleged Sex Abuse
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of PBS
Posted: July 29th, 2018
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/this-is-unaccepta...
When UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres visited the Central African Republic (CAR) in October of 2017, his words echoed a theme that hed been sounding since taking office in January: Stemming the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers was among his top priorities. The same month of Guterres visit to CAR, the UN had received a report of a new rape case there. A young woman named Mauricette, who was 17 at the time, said she was raped by peacekeepers on her way home from a funeral. Mauricette went months without hearing from the UN after her initial interview with them. The details of what allegedly happened to Mauricette are grim. She was vomiting, says Jean-Gaston Endjileteko, who works at Samaritans Medical Center, where Mauricette had been treated. She told me she had drunk some drugged tea spiked with a powder at the Mauritanian checkpoint. The hospital reported Mauricettes rape, and she was interviewed by a local UN representative. But then, the UN went silent. Ive heard nothing, Mauricette says. No news. That was approximately two months after Mauricettes initial interview with the UN so [PBS correspondent Ramita] Navai brought the delay to the attention of Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Head of UN Mission, Central African Republic. Mauricette still hadnt heard anything further from the UN four months after FRONTLINE brought the delay in communication with her about her case to the UNs attention.
Note: An hour-long episode of PBS FRONTLINE details the sad case introduced by the article above. In 2015, more than a year after allegations of UN peacekeepers sexual abusing children came to light, it was reported that the UN had taken disciplinary action against the whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing, but not against the soldiers accused of abuses. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
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