UN "Peacekeepers" in Trouble

What is it with the United Nations peacekeeping forces? Once again last month a number of their soldiers were sent home this time for the sexual abuse of children in Sudan. So frequently has this kind of action happened that newspapers don’t even report all the cases.
Soldiers sent to foreign countries as peacekeepers are meant to reduce the violence but instead some of them use their position of power to commit repeated sex acts of violence against women and children. In 1990 serious cases of abuse in Cambodia received public attention. Since then, UN peacekeepers in countries as diverse as, Burundi, Haiti, Liberia, Congo and Timor and a number of other countries have been sent home for abusive activities. With about 80,000 military personnel currently serving in 17 countries the UN now appears to have an impossible task in trying to maintain some kind of discipline.
UNICEF and other children’s agencies (including ECPAT national groups) are not geared to monitor the actions of soldiers, but nevertheless their work with children has often lead to them exposing the exploitative acts of some of the peacekeepers. The UN has no mechanism for court martial so when sex abuse incidents become public the only punishment for the offending soldier or soldiers will be a return ticket home where proceedings are rarely brought against offenders.
The UN “army” has little cohesion. It is a multinational and multicultural mix of soldiers with no common language or culture. Such an organisation has little chance of maintaining effective discipline and provides only minimum accountability for soldier’s actions. Whether the governments sending troops will be willing to give more disciplinary powers to the UN is doubtful but this would be the only long-term solution. Until then all we can ask is that the UN forces try to develop three immediate qualities: increased accountability, greater discipline and more transparency.