UN’s predators: Harrowing tales of sexual abuse by aid workers and UN peacekeepers in South Sudan

UN’s predators: Harrowing tales of sexual abuse by aid workers and UN peacekeepers in South Sudan

0

Adeyinka Badejo, World Food Programme’s (WFP) South Sudan acting country director and the co-chair of the UN-led task force that aims to prevent such abuses, said in a written response to reporters that some prevention efforts had also been disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An external mid-term review of the UN-led task force between August 2018 and December 2020 noted concerns over providing survivor care, ensuring the safety and protection of survivors and witnesses, and a lack of uniform standards on how risks are mitigated amongst NGOs and UN agencies.

The report, which also noted uneven data collection between UN agencies and NGOs, was shared by an aid worker who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

The review also found that only one third of the cases between August 2018 and December 2020 were provided with victim assistance, and less than half were closed within a year. The report did not offer a total number of cases during that period.

In the course of a week, The New Humanitarian and Al Jazeera spoke to several women in the camp who said they were sexually abused or exploited by aid workers, and reporters also obtained nearly a dozen documents that show the UN and other aid groups knew about the problem for years.

“No specific outcomes or outputs to ensure the safety and protection of survivors, witnesses, complainants or subject of the complaint.”

Reporters also spoke to aid workers who had worked in the camp early on, and who said the scale of the problem had grown worse over the years. Although there was no central system to prevent, log and tackle cases of sexual abuse and exploitation when the camp was set up in late 2013, they said organisations began hearing of such reports as early as 2015.

By 2018, alarms were sounded that the overcrowded camp was particularly risky for women and girls, in part due to aid workers having “inadequate knowledge of policies and procedures”, according to a planning document for the UN-led task force. The document was shared with reporters by an aid worker who asked for anonymity because they were not authorised to share it.

Talk of sexual exploitation in Malakal had become so pervasive by 2019 that local musicians invited to play at a Christmas party sang about it in Shilluk, their language, chiding aid workers for “flashing their VHF radios and exploiting poor women”, according to one foreign aid worker in attendance, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

By 2020, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) – an NGO working in the camp – had noted the lack of progress on the issue, according to a confidential 2020 report from DRC shared by an aid worker, who asked to remain anonymous given the sensitive nature of its contents.

It said DRC was concerned that the UN-led task force in Malakal had become less effective between 2019 and 2020 when there was staff turnover, that community groups and aid workers were worried about a lack of follow-up on cases, and that complainants had been kept in the dark about progress on cases.

“…DRC staff in the field had become aware of some concerns related to SEA by humanitarians and Peacekeeping Forces in 2019 and likely earlier…” this was from Danish Refugee Council’s Internal Management Review of PSEA in Malakal PoC – November 2020, and stamped “Strictly Confidential.” In its report, the DRC also noted the potential risk from UN peacekeepers.

The Malakal camp is just steps away from the UN peacekeeping base. UN peacekeepers stand guard at the entrance of the camp and periodically patrol it.

“Research has shown that environments with a high proximity of military forces, including those deployed as United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, present a heightened risk of SEA for vulnerable populations,” the DRC report said.

It also noted that long deployments of peacekeeping forces in a confined environment with regular camp access, coupled with a lack of criminal justice systems and training, posed a higher risk of sexual abuse and exploitation.

James Curtis, the Danish Refugee Council’s executive director in East Africa and the Great Lakes, told reporters in an email on August 16, 2022 that DRC had long called for measures to be reinforced, and referred to the reports of abuse as “hugely disturbing.”

“This is a very important story to be told, and DRC is committed to being a part of the solution,” Curtis said, adding that DRC recorded four reports of sexual misconduct in Malakal from 2015 to 2018. One was proven, but Curtis provided no details, citing legal and confidentiality issues.

Between 2013 and 2018, reporting and logging allegations involving both NGOs and UN agencies countrywide was patchy. The extended mandate of the taskforce in 2018 was supposed to have changed that.

Since 2019, there have been a total of 28 logged allegations in all of South Sudan, Badejo, the co-chair of the taskforce, told reporters in January. Eight were in Malakal.

But the actual scale of the abuse is likely to be larger. In the space of roughly a week, one reporter was able to find seven women in Malakal who were willing to share their stories. It was unclear if those cases were part of the eight that Badejo noted.

Community leaders, women’s activists, healthcare workers, and aid workers told reporters they knew of even more cases, suggesting the abuse was widespread and vastly underreported.

Humanitarian needs are immense among the 37,000 people at the UN camp in Malakal, where aid worker sex abuse allegations have surfaced. Most of the women said they knew the men’s names.

One woman told The New Humanitarian and Al Jazeera she feared for the safety of her 13-year-old daughter, saying that a local Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff security guard tried to rape the girl in October 2021.

She said the MSF worker dragged her off the street and into his house, only relenting when his wife pushed him away and tried to help the girl.

She said she escalated the case to local police, who issued a letter demanding the man be brought to town, but that community chiefs then threatened anyone who turned him in, saying they would be responsible for whatever happened to him.

  • The New Humanitarian report
About author

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *