UN investigated 319 peacekeepers on sex abuse

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 1 (Reuters) The United Nations has investigated 319 peacekeeping personnel for sexual abuse since 2004 and disciplined 179 soldiers, civilians and police but exploitation of minors and the poor persists, a UN spokesman said.

Sexual abuse charges have surfaced for decades in UN peacekeeping missions and among civilian and other humanitarian staff. But the world body has seriously pursued offenders only in the past two years after reports of widespread abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the world body has 17,000 troops.

''It has been clear we have redoubled our efforts in that regard to prevent these acts from happening, to discipline those who are responsible and to try to bring assistance to the victims,'' UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday.

''We have been making progress on these issues but we obviously have a ways to go,'' he added.

Since January 2004, the United Nations has investigated 319 military and civilian personnel in all its missions.

These have resulted in the summary dismissal of 18 civilians and the repatriation on disciplinary grounds of 17 police and 144 military personnel, Dujarric said.

UN officials noted that most of the soldiers, contributed by various countries, cannot be disciplined but only expelled from the mission and sent home.

In March 2005 Jordan's UN ambassador wrote a report proposing that soldiers accused of abuse should be court-martialed immediately in the country where the offense was said to have taken place. But such trials are rare.

Dujarric said the United Nations relied on contributing countries to discipline their personnel -- now reaching 90,000 -- and tried to make sure that people who are sent home are disciplined.

HAITI AND LIBERIA The issue arose yesterday because of a BBC report of continued abuse in Haiti and in Liberia, where there are 15,000 peacekeepers.

Dujarric said one case the BBC mentioned in Haiti took place in November 2004 and the charges were not substantiated in two UN investigations. The incident in Liberia took place on November 15 but the UN Mission in Liberia said no one had given them any information.

The BBC documentary mentioned more than one teenager in Haiti who said they had been raped or offered food for sex, and it spoke to a street girl who had reported abuse by peacekeepers outside the gates of the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.

It also spotted three men in marked UN vehicles soliciting prostitutes, which is banned. In the Congo, the United Nations has outlawed fraternisation with local girls and women. But that is not the case elsewhere.

The problem is serious enough that the United Nations on Monday plans a high-level meeting to discuss the issue.

REUTERS SBA BST0645