JISB Interview: Immunity, Sexual Scandals and Peacekeeping

Abstract

Dr Nicolas Lemay-Hébert interviewed Paula Donovan, the co-founder and co-director with Stephen Lewis of AIDS-Free World, on 25 June 2015. AIDS-Free World is currently leading a campaign (named ‘Code Blue’) aiming at eliminating immunity for sexual violence committed by UN personnel. The organization is behind the leak to the Guardian newspaper of interviews by staff from the UN's Office of the High Commission of Human Rights and UNICEF with alleged victims of sexual abuse by French, Chadian and Equatorial Guinean peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Subsequently, the UN's Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, decided to appoint an External Independent Review panel to look at the UN system's failure to address sexual exploitation and abuse.

Keywords:

• Gender
• masculinity
• sexual exploitation and abuse
• Kompass
• HIV
• AIDS
• peacebuilding
• Central African Republic
• United Nations

Notes on Contributor

Paula Donovan is co-founder and co-director (with Stephen Lewis) of AIDS-Free World, Uniondale, NY, USA. ([email protected])

Notes

1 MONUC stands for Mission de l'Organisation de Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo or the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was renamed MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 2010.

2 For a background on this story, see: Laville (2015); AIDS-Free World (2015).