Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

The United Nations (UN) and its partners are pledged to care for the most vulnerable in our world. However, a key challenge to this care is sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by persons working for the United Nations and its partners. Sexual exploitation and abuse represents a catastrophic failure of protection. It brings harm to those whom the UN and its partners are mandated to protect and jeopardizes the reputation of the UN and its partners. It also violates universally recognized international legal norms and standards. Although sexual exploitation and abuse is not a new phenomenon, it was brought to the forefront of public attention in 2002 following allegations of widespread sexual exploitation and abuse of refugee and internally displaced women and children by UN workers and peacekeepers in West Africa. These grave and substantiated allegations highlighted both the vulnerability of such populations and the shortcomings of existing mechanisms to prevent such abuses from occurring within the UN system.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises, composed of a number of UN and nongovernmental entities, was established in March 2002. It advised the UN on specific measures, developed agreed definitions of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and adopted six standards of behaviour to be included in UN and NGO codes of conduct.

This led to the promulgation in October 2003 by the Secretary-General of his Bulletin entitled Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (SGB). The SGB stipulates that any acts of sexual exploitation or sexual abuse committed by UN staff members or persons under contract with the UN “constitute acts of serious misconduct and are therefore grounds for disciplinary measures, including summary dismissal.”

Every year since promulgation of the SGB, the Secretary-General has issued a report containing updates on the scope of the problem and prevention and response measures taken by the UN. (Reports listed in column at right.)

In 2004, the UN Secretary-General invited H.R.H. Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the Permanent Representative of Jordan to the UN, to act as his Adviser on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeeping Personnel. In March 2005, the Zeid Report, “A comprehensive strategy to eliminate future sexual exploitation and abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping operations” (A/59/710), was released. Prince Zeid stepped down from his position at the end of 2006.

In 2005, the UN declared a zero tolerance policy.

Also in 2005, the Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of the Executive Committees on Humanitarian Affairs and on Peace and Security (ECHA/ECPS) and NGOs took up the work of the IASC Task Force. The Task Force continues its work today.

Dozens of UN and non-UN entities signed a Statement of Commitment Eliminating Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN and non-UN Personnel containing 10 action points.

Member States instructed UN peacekeeping missions to provide emergency assistance to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse, such as in a Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and its Working Group on the 2007 Substantive Session (A/61/19(PartII)).

The General Assembly adopted a UN-wide strategy on assistance to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN staff and related personnel (A/RES/62/214).

The IASC Task Force, the ECHA/ECPS Task Force and individual agencies developed tools to address sexual exploitation and abuse in the context of training, awareness-raising and reporting. (See column at right.)

Despite this progress, allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse are continuing to emerge in UN and partner operations around the world. In order to prevent these acts from occurring in future and in order to respond appropriately if they do, the UN and its partners will need to continue to build and implement an effective, comprehensive strategy.

Considerable progress has been made on this issue since then:

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