October 20, 2005--Boys Will Be Boys
A relatively benign, hidden-away article in yesterday’s NY Times (on page A5) deserved both better placement and at least some measure of outrage. The Times piece is about a recent report by Refugees International that was commissioned to investigate how UN peacekeeping troops and personnel have been sexually abusing the very populations to which they are assigned to bring peace.
Though the Times article does include brief mention of how UN peacekeepers and civilian staff members had forced sex with women and girls in the Congo in exchange for food and money, it does not even cast a superficial analytical glance at the report itself nor delineate why in its shortcomings it will ultimately join so many other UN reports that have been doomed to uselessness.
The RI report begins with a chapter on the “Culture of Gender-Based Violence in West Africa and Haiti,” concluding that viscious forms of rape and other kinds of violence against women, girls, boys, and men existed, to quote the report, “long before the peacekeepers arrived.” Historically, armed forces there used sexual abuse to brutalize army recruits and to break the binds within families: “Conscripts (often children combatants) were forced to rape their mothers and sisters.” That’s’ the context—what existed, again, “before the UN peacekeepers arrived.”
The next chapter of the report provides more context—how we must understand how “most militaries around the world have to address the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse” that is endemic to “even the best trained militaries.” Again, to quote the Refugees International Report—“Since UN peacekeeping missions are made up of troops contributed from militaries around the world, they are subject to the same problems as the individual militaries that contribute troops to them” [my emphasis]. Problems indeed.
In other words, boys are just boys and thus what can we expect of the U.N. peacekeeping troops, who after all are not even necessarily from among “the best trained militaries.” Those, presumably, have more important assignments in places such as, say, Iraq.
The report does manage to show some understanding for the larger situation. It quotes one worker from Atlas, the NGO in charge of a UN camp in Congo, who said, “Yes, we know that girls go and visit the UN soldiers every night. There is nothing to stop them, and the girls need food. One girl said, ‘Going over to the camp is OK because the soldiers are kind to me and don’t point their guns like the other soldiers did.’”
I couldn’t help but wonder why the Atlas folks hadn't been able to figure out a different system for getting food to the girls, maybe even some place away from the troops? But then again, look how nice the peacekeepers were being to the girls, taking such care not to frighten them with their guns.
And thus, who even needs to read the Recommendations chapter—If boys will be boys I suppose reports will be reports
Though the Times article does include brief mention of how UN peacekeepers and civilian staff members had forced sex with women and girls in the Congo in exchange for food and money, it does not even cast a superficial analytical glance at the report itself nor delineate why in its shortcomings it will ultimately join so many other UN reports that have been doomed to uselessness.
The RI report begins with a chapter on the “Culture of Gender-Based Violence in West Africa and Haiti,” concluding that viscious forms of rape and other kinds of violence against women, girls, boys, and men existed, to quote the report, “long before the peacekeepers arrived.” Historically, armed forces there used sexual abuse to brutalize army recruits and to break the binds within families: “Conscripts (often children combatants) were forced to rape their mothers and sisters.” That’s’ the context—what existed, again, “before the UN peacekeepers arrived.”
The next chapter of the report provides more context—how we must understand how “most militaries around the world have to address the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse” that is endemic to “even the best trained militaries.” Again, to quote the Refugees International Report—“Since UN peacekeeping missions are made up of troops contributed from militaries around the world, they are subject to the same problems as the individual militaries that contribute troops to them” [my emphasis]. Problems indeed.
In other words, boys are just boys and thus what can we expect of the U.N. peacekeeping troops, who after all are not even necessarily from among “the best trained militaries.” Those, presumably, have more important assignments in places such as, say, Iraq.
The report does manage to show some understanding for the larger situation. It quotes one worker from Atlas, the NGO in charge of a UN camp in Congo, who said, “Yes, we know that girls go and visit the UN soldiers every night. There is nothing to stop them, and the girls need food. One girl said, ‘Going over to the camp is OK because the soldiers are kind to me and don’t point their guns like the other soldiers did.’”
I couldn’t help but wonder why the Atlas folks hadn't been able to figure out a different system for getting food to the girls, maybe even some place away from the troops? But then again, look how nice the peacekeepers were being to the girls, taking such care not to frighten them with their guns.
And thus, who even needs to read the Recommendations chapter—If boys will be boys I suppose reports will be reports
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:44 AM
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