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When Peacemakers Become Perpetrators: Kathryn Bolkovac Introduces The Whistleblower at the UN
un articulo por Lia Petridis Maiello, Huffington Post
Kathryn Bolkovac had a passion for doing what is
right, representing an institution that symbolizes
the culture of peace, humanity and international
justice like no other in the world: the United
Nations. After living up to the moral standards
set by the very same institution, her career in
international law enforcement ended in April 2001.
click on photo to enlarge
Bolkovac disclosed the horrors of sexual
enslavement of young women, trafficked mainly from
Russia and the Ukraine -- also performed by UN
peacekeepers in Bosnia. According to a report
provided by Human Rights Watch, the "clientele" in
Bosnia consisted of International Police Task
Force (IPTF) members, SFOR (Stabilization Force in
Bosnia and Herzegovina) staff, local police,
international employees, and local citizens.
Recently Bolkovac returned to UN headquarters in
New York City, introducing her book The
Whistleblower, the testimony that inspired the
film with the same name, starring British actress
Rachel Weisz. It is a moving and enlightening
scripture that serves as a crucial reminder that
according to a document released by the UN in
March 2010, titled "Sexual Exploitation and
Abuse": "sexual exploitation and abuse, in a
variety of different forms, has been found to
exist to a greater or lesser extent in all duty
stations."
Former Nebraska police investigator Kathryn
Bolkovac joined the UN Police Task Force in post-
war Bosnia in 1999 as an employee of the private
military contractor DynCorp in order to train
local police officers. She became a human rights
investigator, and after blowing the whistle on the
humanitarian crimes taking place, she was fired.
Bolkovac sued DynCorp in a British employment
tribunal, claiming she had been unfairly
dismissed. The tribunal ruled in her favor.
As a consequence, the UN published a bulletin of a
zero-tolerance policy for all UN personnel in
2003, one among many other initiatives implemented
over the years. Despite the concerted efforts,
however, sexual assaults in the field instigated
by UN peacekeepers are still occurring, the
victimized groups often including boys and minors.
In September of 2011 the New York Times reported,
"This week, hundreds of Haitians protested in
support of an 18-year-old who said he was sexually
assaulted by peacekeepers from Uruguay on a United
Nations base, eliciting a furious rebuke from
Haiti's president and an apology from Uruguay."
A major underlying problem is the limited control
that the UN has over individual peacekeepers. A
2007 vote in the General Assembly prevents the UN
from taking the lead role in investigating
wrongdoing by peacekeepers; that responsibility
falls with the troop contributing countries (TCCs)
themselves.
This was a problem that had already been clearly
identified in a UN internal study in 2005. Former
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in reaction to the
scandal and the image damage the UN had suffered,
had established the position of the Special
Adviser on Sexual Exploitation in Peacekeeping in
2004, which he filled with the former Jordanian
ambassador Prince Zeid Raad Zeid al-Hussein who
published a damning study in 2005, stating,
"Member states are not reliable enough to do a
good job on their own, especially in the early
stages of a military investigation." The current
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has never filled
that position.
(This article is continued in the discussionboard)
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DISCUSSION
Pregunta(s) relacionada(s) al artículo :
Protecting women and girls against violence , Is progress being made?
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Comentario más reciente:
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The 47 CPNN articles devoted to this theme suggest that indeed progress is being made.
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