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Senators: Cut off money over sex crimes by UN peacekeepers
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Judge Marie Deschamps (left) of Canada, chair of the Independent Review Panel on UN Response to Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Foreign Military Forces in the Central African Republic, is joined by panel member Hassan Jallow at a news conference at the United Nations, Dec. 17, 2015. (AP/Richard Drew)
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epublicans and Democrats on Wednesday expressed disgust over dozens of sexual abuse allegations against United Nations peacekeepers and called on the State Department to help end the abuse by cutting off foreign aid to countries that won't hold their troops accountable.
At a Foreign Relations Committee hearing, panel chairman Sen. Bob Corker called the allegations "moral depravity" and said he'd rush home to Tennessee to protect his family if he learned that UN peacekeepers were being sent there. US laws make it unlikely that peacekeepers would ever be dispatched to the United States.
The UN in recent months has faced a series of allegations of sexual abuses, including child rapes, by its peacekeepers, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo. The UN reported 69 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in 2015.
Corker and other senators demanded to know why UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior UN officials have allowed the persistent problem to fester. A 2005 UN report documented episodes of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, including the exchange of sex for money or food.
The United States, the largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, should exercise its leverage more aggressively if the UN continues to drag its feet, the senators added.
"How do we put up with such inept leadership at the United Nations?" Corker asked.
Isobel Coleman, the US representative at the UN for management and reform, said it's not ineptitude but a reluctance by countries contributing troops to peacekeeping missions "to deal with this issue in the transparent way that it must be dealt with."
Corker and other committee members pressed State Department officials on whether they have used a US human rights law known as the Leahy amendment to refuse foreign aid to countries whose peacekeepers sexually abuse the people they are sent to protect.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Rothstein of the department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs said he could not cite an instance of money being withheld. But he told the committee that the US has only recently had the visibility into the crimes and the perpetrators that would allow it to block aid.
