The UN section of the House of Commons International Development Committee Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector
While in New York in June I met up socially with some of the members of the House of Commons International Development Committee who were visiting to look at the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse in multilateral organizations within the aid sector as part of their research for their full report relating to the issue int he aid sector as whole. I strongly recommend reading the whole report which is a sobering and far too often shocking read.
I am republishing the section of the report that deals with primarily the UN. I have written before about concerns i have had in the development NGOs over a number of issues. What this report does do is challenge us all in the international arena to actually practice the values that we say we believe in. This report came out two weeks ago and perhaps will nto receive the review it deserves because it came out as many people were going on holiday. I hope this blog expands the group that will read both this section and then go onto read the whole report.
Safeguarding at the
multilateral level
Role of the UN in
tackling SEA
146. We have paid particular attention to the activities of
the UN with regards to SEA. Since the 2002 West Africa report, which documented
allegations of SEA that implicated 9 peacekeeping battalions and 40 aid
organisations including UNHCR, the UN has continued to be subject to
allegations: the UN Secretary-General’s Special Measures reports have shown
that there were 165 allegations of SEA in 2016 and 138 allegations of SEA in
2017.
147. At the same time, the Secretary-General, António
Guterres, is seeking to make strides forward in tackling SEA, having launched a
“new approach” in his 2017 report on ‘Special measures for protection from
sexual exploitation and abuse’, shortly after he assumed office. He aims to
make the UN “a global example of best practice and leadership to be followed by
all” in how it protects the people it serves from SEA, and has presented a raft
of measures in support of this. In the 2018 Special Measures report, the
Secretary General gives a renewed commitment to ensuring that PSEA remains a
priority.
Influence of the UK
at the UN
148. We heard that the UK is well placed to steer the UN
towards progress. The Rt Hon Clare Short, former Secretary of State for DFID
said, “[t]he UK is a big player in the UN system. Because it is a good funder,
DFID has a lot of influence”. The current Secretary of State agreed, pointing
out that the UK’s influence was strongest when coordinating with other donors:
“the biggest lever we have… is other donors and our money”. We note that the UK
will take the presidency of the UN Security Council in August this year,
providing further opportunity to influence progress on PSEA.
149. DFID told us about some of the measures they have
already taken to push the UN towards concrete improvements. In his oral
evidence to the Committee, Matthew Rycroft CBE, Permanent Secretary of DFID,
said that the UK had been helping to ensure that peacekeepers had SEA training:
the UK has doubled its
contribution to UN peacekeeping in the last couple of years and we make sure
that every single one of the British peacekeepers who go to join UN missions
has proper training on how to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse. We also
offer training to other contingents from other countries, who perhaps have less
of a tradition in this area than we ourselves do, and we are working with the
United Nations itself to make sure that one part of that family of
organisations is able to spread that best practice to another part.
He also said that the UK is in a position to “withhold
funding from any parts of the United Nations that do not match our
requirements, either in terms of their reform or of their results”.
We have made
absolutely clear that those parts of the international organisations that wish
to continue to receive UK government funding need to make sure that they not
only have zero tolerance for sexual exploitation abuse but that they can prove
they have that zero tolerance.
150. In written evidence to the Committee, DFID outlined
further actions at the multilateral level, including:
Establishing a donor working group to work together on PSEA
“across the development and humanitarian sectors”;
hosting a roundtable in New York on 15 March with senior UN
interlocutors and other donors;
Writing to the Secretary-General jointly with other donors
calling on him to set out an action plan for a joined-up approach;
Writing to all multilateral agencies that DFID core funds,
asking for assurances on their safeguarding practices.
Beyond the UN, the Secretary of State has co-hosted a
roundtable with representatives from ten international financial institutions,
who signed a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to preventing SEA.
Protection from
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)
151. Through written evidence, the Committee has heard about
a number of recent UN agency joint initiatives designed to tackle SEA. UNHCR,
UNFPA, UN Women, UNICEF and UNDP, have jointly developed mandatory training on
Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse for all personnel. UNICEF and UNFPA
are co-leading a joint Task Force on SEA Allegations involving Implementing
Partners, which focuses on developing a “uniform protocol” across the UN system
for how SEA allegations involving implementing partners are reported and
addressed. When we met with representatives of UN agencies in New York, they
were keen to emphasise this collaborative approach.
152. However, despite these examples of joined-up working,
we also saw evidence of a lack of coordination, and an emphasis on processes
and procedures, without much apparent focus on outcomes. We were told that
across the UN system there are now 18 task forces and steering committees
working on PSEA. We were given this figure as evidence of how seriously the UN
is taking PSEA, but this struck us as an indicator of a failure to integrate
efforts. We also heard that it is a challenge to connect the work of IASC PSEA
Task Force, which includes external organisations and NGOs, with the work of
the UN working group on sexual exploitation and abuse, chaired by the Office of
the Special Coordinator, as well as the difficulty in connecting these both up
with the UN’s wider work on gender-based violence.
153. Our impression of disconnect was validated by the
Secretary of State, who talked about the “inconsistency between agencies” with
regards to reporting. She said that “[u]ltimately, this is about… not
duplicating things, cutting down on bureaucracy and having something that is
effective and efficient”.
I don’t think there is
any quick way of getting the UN to get where we want it to be on these issues
and others, other than the hard graft of getting it there. Part of the success
of that is going to be donor nations who pay the agencies to do their work, to
require them to do it in a much more joined up and co-ordinated way.
DFID told us in written evidence that the UK is supporting a
joined up response across the UN, and has sought assurances from the
Secretary-General that the UN is working collaboratively and collectively to
step up efforts to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse. The Deputy
Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, welcomed a strong voice from Member States
in this regard, when we met with her in New York. She highlighted the leverage
that Member States have over UN funds and programmes through their funding and
position on executive boards.
154. With only a
limited pot of resources for PSEA initiatives, it is imperative that the UN
agencies pool their efforts to maximise their impact. We recognise that there
are now a number of joint initiatives but the sheer number of task forces and
working groups that have sprung up indicates that there is still duplication,
or at least a lack of integration, of efforts to tackle SEA. If there is work
being done to systematically measure, monitor and evaluate the outcomes of
these various measures, and share learning, we have not seen evidence of it.
Member States have a key role to play in promoting closer working between the
various limbs of the UN system and, importantly, in ensuring that outcomes are
being monitored, evaluated and shared. We welcome DFID’s push for more
collaborative working and we encourage the UK to leverage the donor working
group and the position that Member States hold on UN agency executive boards to
ensure that this comes to fruition.
Accountability
Lack of coherent and
consistent investigation standards.
155. We have received evidence that has led us to question
the standards of UN investigations into allegations of SEA. The Code Blue
Campaign, using leaked documents on 14 UN fact-finding inquiries into
complaints brought against peacekeepers serving in the UN mission in the
Central African Republic (MINUSCA), concluded that the UN was operating with
“haphazard, ad hoc, and prejudicial investigative procedures”, where the
fact-finders had “scant understanding of crimes of sexual violence”.Caroline
HuntMatthes, an independent investigator who has worked for eight UN
organisations, said that during her service at the UN, she saw a need for
better training for investigators.
156. We have also encountered examples of seemingly positive
investigative practices. For example, UNHCR told us that they have
investigators who are specially trained to handle sexual exploitation and
abuse. All allegations of SEA are prioritised and assessed within 24 hours to
determine the degree of urgency and whether assistance to the potential victim
is required. The UN Department of Management told us that there are current
efforts to increase the number of women investigators and investigators with
experience in SEA more widely in the UN system.
157. However, it is difficult to assess the extent to which high
standards are being upheld in investigations, due to the lack of information
available about the process. Code Blue have described UN processes for
responding to SEA allegations as “a complex web of opaque, bureaucratic
internal procedures and ad hoc processes, operating outside the law and without
any oversight”.In evidence to the Committee, Paula Donovan, the CoDirector of
the Code Blue Campaign, told us that her chief concern was:
what happens between
the time that someone comes forward and reports an allegation and the time that
the United Nations declares that that allegation has been resolved in one way
or another. That is all done behind closed doors.
158. Our meetings at the UN gave us an indication that there
is a lack of coherence across UN agencies when it comes to SEA investigations.
The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (UN OIOS) was established in 1994
to assist the Secretary-General “in fulfilling his oversight responsibilities
in respect of the resources and staff of the Organization through the provision
of audit, investigation, inspection, and evaluation services”. The UN OIOS
carries out investigations into SEA allegations relating to UN field missions
and the UN Secretariat. We were told that alongside the work of the OIOS, all
agencies, funds and programmes sitting outside the UN Secretariat also have
their own investigation units. If the OIOS receives an allegation against
personnel from one of these agencies, they refer the allegation to that agency
to investigate. If a UN organisation which does not have its own investigative
function receives an allegation of SEA, they outsource the investigation to the
OIOS. A recent New York Times article on UN investigations into sexual abuse
portrayed a messy, disjointed system, that is difficult for accusers to
navigate. According to the article, the Secretary-General’s spokesman, Stéphane
Dujarric:
acknowledged that
across the United Nations there is no consistent procedure or standard of proof
for investigating sexual harassment and assault cases. The organization’s 27
programs, funds and agencies largely independently, creating a patchwork of
policies across a vast bureaucracy. Some investigators indicated that they
relied on the legal definition of rape in the country where the act is
committed—even in countries where the United Nations considers the law flawed.
159. The system also appears to engender a diffusion of
responsibility with regards to follow-up, with no single body seeming to be in
charge of driving investigations towards resolution. Once OIOS refers a case to
another UN organisation, there is no formal process of feedback or follow-up.
The same is true for when OIOS makes a criminal referral to a Member State,
and, as outlined in Chapter 3, there is no process for communicating updates
and outcomes back to the original complainant. In the context of this apparent
lack of coordination, we heard from representatives of UN funds and programmes
about the need to coordinate as closely as possible with regards to sanctions
in order to ensure standardisation across the organisation.
160. We heard from the UN funds and programmes
representatives why a decentralised system of investigations is important for
ensuring that each organisation is able to respond quickly and appropriately to
allegations, rather than referring all allegations to one centralised unit
which could become cumbersome and slow. They also highlighted the advantages of
being able to have tailored investigative practices for the specific nature of
their organisation’s work. However, we also heard from a senior UN official
that a “common investigative capacity across the whole UN system would be a
huge step in the right direction”.
161. The Special Coordinator on improving the United Nations
response to sexual exploitation and abuse, Jane Holl Lute, told us that her
role was to work out “where common tools make common sense”. She recognised
that there were inconsistencies in the UN’s approach to SEA allegations and has
consequently developed a standardised reporting form, based on advice from top
investigators across the UN system.
162. The UN’s
approach to investigating SEA allegations lacks consistency and coherence. The
system is not laid out clearly enough for us to judge where high standards are
being met, and where they are deficient. Investigative functions seem to
operate in siloes, and there is little evidence of best practice sharing. There
is no single body taking an overall interest in the outcomes of investigations
or driving them towards resolution, and the victims appear to be essentially
forgotten. We heard that standardisation on sanctions is important, but the
structure of the current system seems to completely undermine this. We
appreciate that there may be advantages to decentralisation, but this does not
preclude coordination and consistency.
163. We welcome the
introduction of a standardised reporting form, and believe that this
consistency should be evident in all aspects of UN investigations. 164. The UK
should urge the UN Special Coordinator on SEA to create, in consultation with
both the OIOS and the individual investigative functions of the UN agencies,
funds and programmes, best practice standards for investigations, which all
agencies responsible for conducting investigations must follow. These standards
should reflect the importance of ensuring that investigations reach a timely
conclusion as well as necessity of having investigators with specialist
expertise in sexual exploitation and abuse. The Victims’ Rights Advocate should
work with the Special Coordinator on SEA to ensure that these standards reflect
a victim-centred approach to investigations. The UK should hold agencies to
account for the adoption of these best practice standards, and should encourage
other States in the donor working group to do the same.
Immunity
165. Immunity of UN workers, especially civilian staff, has
been heavily criticised in the evidence we have received. The Code Blue
Campaign explained how immunity applies to different kinds of UN personnel:
The civilian personnel
who carry out the UN’s work… have immunity, to protect their work from
interference or retaliation from a hostile government. For UN personnel, how
far immunity extends depends on their category of personnel and the nature of
the actions or words that constitute the alleged offense. The highest-ranking
UN officials have immunity akin to diplomatic immunity, but the vast majority
of personnel have only functional immunity–which means they are only immune from
any legal process for words and actions performed as part of their official
duties. Military personnel deployed to work with UN peacekeeping missions do
not have immunity from legal process; instead, by prior agreement, military
personnel remain under the “exclusive jurisdiction” of their country of
nationality–that is, a country which sends troops to the UN retains the right
and duty to investigate and prosecute its own personnel.
166. UNA-UK explained that whilst peacekeepers can be
prosecuted by their home country, they have immunity from prosecution by the
host country. If their home country does not exercise extraterritorial
jurisdiction, or if certain acts of sexual abuse are not recognised as a crime,
then even the home country will not be able to prosecute.
167. The UN Secretary-General confirmed on 13 February 2018
that the UN will not seek immunity in cases of sexual abuse, which DFID
welcomed as an important signal. Natalie Samarasinghe, on behalf of UNA-UK,
said in oral evidence that this now needs to be implemented:
The Secretary-General
has made that commitment. It is a recent commitment… we still need to see
whether that is going to be put into practice, and there are cases now where
you could argue that it should be. We need to wait to see whether that happens.
168. UNA-UK have also set out why, whether or not the
Secretary-General follows through on this commitment, there may still be
barriers to prosecution:
States of origin
frequently don’t exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over civilians.
Meanwhile, host states, which are experiencing a significant enough crisis of
governance to necessitate a peacekeeping mission, are frequently unable to
prosecute effectively.
169. The barriers to prosecution appear evident when looking
at the data available on the progress of SEA investigations. The UN lists SEA
allegations against field mission personnel since 2015 on its website.
Currently, most of these cases are listed as ‘pending’. But, even where cases
of a serious nature are listed as ‘substantiated’, it appears there are a
substantial number where no penal action has been taken.
170. Paula Donovan of the Code Blue Campaign told the
Committee that there is less accountability for civilian than military
personnel:
Where the jurisdiction
of the troop-contributing countries is concerned, there is a path—whether or
not it is followed is a matter of hot debate— but there is no path to justice
for civilians who are accused of sexual misconduct of any kind in the United
Nations. It is all shrouded in secrecy. While there is naming and shaming of
the Governments that are providing troops, when you look at the UN’s published
data it simply says, “Civilian”. You cannot find out where that civilian is
from, whether it is a national of the UK, Sri Lanka or the Maldives. You have
absolutely no idea where that person is from.
171. Typically, the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse
by peacekeepers has received more focus than civilian personnel but, according
to DFID, this is starting to shift.Code Blue states that:
In all years since the
UN has made data available, civilian personnel of the UN have committed more
sexual exploitation and abuse per capita… Over 60% of allegations reported to
the UN in 2017 were against civilians.
In a speech in September 2017, UN Secretary General
acknowledged that “the majority of the cases of sexual exploitation and abuse
are done by the civilian organizations of the United Nations, and not in
peacekeeping operations”. Natalie Samarasinghe described SEA by civilian
personnel as “the next big scandal waiting to happen”.
172. For Code Blue, the challenges in bringing civilian
personnel to account are rooted in the fact that “the UN is not a neutral
party”:
In any case involving
one of its own personnel, the UN organization has its own interests to protect,
such as mitigating reputational damage, assessing whether the case will have an
impact on the organization’s programming or funding, and retaining and
supporting employees who are key players in diplomatic or management
strategies. These interests, among others, form the basis of a deep,
intractable conflict of interest. In any other context, this conflict is plain.
It is why the use of employer investigations and disciplinary processes is
normally a supplement to criminal or civil justice, and employers are bound to
respect the law and to defer to law enforcement and neutral court officials.
Employers are ideally not the first and should never be the only point of
contact for victims of crimes.
173. In order to overcome this “built-in bias” Code Blue
have called upon Member States to establish both a Temporary Independent
Oversight Panel and a Special Court Mechanism to ensure criminal
accountability. When we put this to the Secretary of State, she cautioned
against “replicating law enforcement” and said that this “would not gain traction”:
You are still left
with the same problem that, even if you have an independent organisation, you
still have to get the UN and its component parts to recognise it.
She promoted instead, “hard graft” by Member States to push
the UN towards reform.305 Whilst in New York, we were also cautioned in several
meetings that any oversight measure driven forward by Member States risks
replicating the existing political dynamics within the UN that already hamper
progress and reform.
174. Impunity for
sexual exploitation and abuse is utterly unacceptable. The lack of
accountability entirely undermines the notion of zero tolerance and undercuts
efforts to strengthen reporting mechanisms, by reinforcing the notion that
there is no value in bringing forward allegations. The UN, and its Member
States, cannot underestimate the importance of ensuring that allegations of SEA
reach a proper conclusion. We can see that there may be no buy-in amongst
Member States for an independent accountability mechanism overseeing the UN
investigation processes, and we also recognise that such mechanisms risk
replicating the existing political dynamics within the UN. Member States,
however, still have an important role to play regarding accountability.
175. It is imperative
that all cases referred to Member states are thoroughly investigated and
brought to trial where there is a case, and that the outcome of this judicial
process is communicated back to the initial complainant. The UK must lead the
way and use its influence within the donor working group to ensure that other
Member States do the same.
176. We welcome the
UN Secretary-General’s commitment to waive immunity in cases of SEA, and his
recognition that this is a significant problem with civilian, as well as
military, personnel.
177. The UK should
ensure that the theoretical waiver of immunity also applies in practice, and
should press the Secretary-General to deliver on his commitment in all cases
where it applies.
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