A BBC inves­ti­ga­tion com­mis­sioned as part of Gen­er­a­tion Next — a week of pro­grammes focus­ing on peo­ple under 18 — has uncov­ered fresh alle­ga­tions of the sex­ual abuse of chil­dren by United Nations peace­keep­ers. Mike Williams reports from Port au Prince, Haiti.

This 16-year-old tells Mike Williams about the alleged rape by a Brazil­ian serviceman

The heav­ily armoured United Nations patrol rolls through the dusty streets of Cite Soleil — the most dan­ger­ous and deprived part of a very dan­ger­ous and deprived country.

UN peace­keep­ers crouch low in the tur­rets of the armoured cars, their rifles track­ing the rooftops and alley­ways. They come under fire every day in this part of the cap­i­tal, Port au Prince.

The week before I arrived, two of the peace­keep­ers were killed there.

Exploita­tion

There are about 9000 peace­keep­ers in the UN mis­sion to Haiti, most of them sol­diers who come from 19 dif­fer­ent nations. Most of them have come to help. They work hard in dan­ger­ous con­di­tions to bring secu­rity and aid to the des­per­ate people.

“He held me down by the arms and held both my wrists, twist­ing them back and we strug­gled together 16-year-old girl UN troops face abuse claims

But there are some peace­keep­ers who are will­ing to use their advan­tages to exploit some of the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in this trou­bled society.

I spoke to a 14-year-old girl who told of the peace­keeper who offered her jelly, sweets and a few dol­lars for sex with her and her friend — a child of just 11 years.

Half of the pop­u­la­tion of Haiti strug­gle to sur­vive on just a dol­lar a day and the streets are filled with peo­ple sell­ing what­ever they can to raise a lit­tle cash. At night­time, those who have noth­ing to sell, sell themselves.

Among the UN sol­diers and civil­ians, they can find will­ing buy­ers. One UN offi­cial told me that a great many of the girls who work the streets are chil­dren and, in the dark streets of the cap­i­tal Port-au-Prince, we watched UN offi­cials pick­ing up young pros­ti­tutes and dri­ving off with them.

‘Betrayal’

Sarah Mar­tin, of Refugees Inter­na­tional, has stud­ied the prob­lem in UN mis­sions across the world.

Mike Williams talks to a 14-year-old who was offered food and $20 in return for sex (face blurred)

“To prey upon the very pop­u­la­tions that you are sent to pro­tect is one of the worst forms of vio­la­tion and betrayal that there is,” she says.

Sarah (not her real name) is a frag­ile look­ing girl of 16. She says that two years ago, she was raped by a Brazil­ian sol­dier serv­ing with the UN mis­sion there.

She stared at the ground while we talked and, almost in a whis­per, she explained what hap­pened: “He held me down by the arms and held both my wrists, twist­ing them back and we strug­gled together. And then he raped me.”

Her mother cried while she recalled that day: “When I found her I didn’t rec­og­nize my own child,” she says. “She had the face of a dead per­son — I started to cry out, she couldn’t tell me what had happened.”

The fam­ily have been seek­ing jus­tice from the United Nations but offi­cials at the local UN mis­sion say that jus­tice was done. Three inter­nal inquiries found there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence against the man and he was sent back to his unit in Brazil.

Immu­nity

Sol­diers serv­ing with the UN have immu­nity from local laws and it’s up to their home coun­tries to dis­ci­pline them. More often than not, they’re sim­ply repa­tri­ated and the UN has lit­tle infor­ma­tion about what, if any­thing, hap­pens to them then.

All of our mis­sions are in areas that are eco­nom­i­cally deprived… where habits like pros­ti­tu­tion of very young chil­dren is seen as a mat­ter of course Jane Holl Lute, assis­tant secretary-general for peace­keep­ing operations

“The UN has to be absolutely vig­i­lant that those troops that are con­duct­ing these prac­tices are dis­missed,” says Anna Jef­ferys of Save The Chil­dren. “It has to ensure that those mem­ber states that are deploy­ing these troops are some­how shamed within the UN sys­tem so that the stigma becomes too big to do it again.”

The UN is hold­ing a con­fer­ence in New York on Mon­day 4 Decem­ber, at which offi­cials will hear from vic­tims, NGO work­ers and researchers in the field.

The assis­tant secretary-general for peace­keep­ing oper­a­tions, Jane Holl Lute, says they need find ways to con­trol the exploita­tion and she admits that the organ­i­sa­tion has a very seri­ous problem.

“My oper­at­ing pre­sump­tion that this is either an ongo­ing or poten­tial prob­lem in every sin­gle one of our mis­sions,” she says.

“All of our mis­sions are in areas that are eco­nom­i­cally deprived, where soci­eties have been torn by con­flict and war, where habits like pros­ti­tu­tion of very young chil­dren is seen as a mat­ter of course.

“We need to bring every resource we can to bear to make that not the case when a peace­keep­ing mis­sion is in place.”

Ms Lute said the UN’s inabil­ity to impose pun­ish­ments was a short­com­ing in the sys­tem and she admit­ted that the organ­i­sa­tion does not have a sys­tem of jus­tice that every­one would recog­nise as fair and equitable.

Sarah, the girl who claims she was raped by a peace­keeper would prob­a­bly agree.