https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4803-298X
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ABSTRACT
Many peace support operations have faced allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by UN personnel against members of local communities. Some of these intimate relations result in children being born but there is little empirical data on the experiences of women and girls who conceive and bear these children. We analyse 265 self interpreted narratives from community members in Haiti about children fathered by UN personnel and born to local women or girls. The mixed methods results highlight three important themes: (a) poverty is a key underlying factor contributing to sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeeping personnel, (b) the repatriation of implicated peacekeepers often leaves the woman and child in exacerbated poverty, and (c) intimate relations with fair-skinned peacekeepers and having fair-skinned children are sometimes perceived as desirable. The data highlight that children fathered by MINUSTAH personnel are typically being raised in settings of extreme economic deprivation and are often denied access to education and other basic services that would enable them to break the cycle of poverty. While the overarching need identified in this analysis is financial, additional research with the children themselves in warranted to identify other needs and to inform policies and programmes intended to improve their well-being.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to all the participants who shared their experiences living in communities that host a peacekeeping mission. We are also indebted to the research team who collected the data and to KOFAVIV, ETS and BAI and for the support and guidance in implementing this work. The work would not have been possible without the financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Sabine Lee is a historian with expertise in the field of historical and anthropological research around consequences of war and conflict. She has published on the social consequences of war and children conceived as a result of sexual and gender-based violence. She is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Birmingham and has led a funded international, interdisciplinary research network on children born of war and currently co-ordinates a European Commission Horizon2020-funded Innovative Doctoral Training Network consisting of 15 interdisciplinary doctoral projects in Europe.
Susan Bartels is a Clinician Scientist and Associate Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Public Health Sciences at Queen’s University. In addition to practicing emergency medicine, she conducts global public health research focused on how women and children are impacted by humanitarian crises. While much of her work has been in Sub-Saharan Africa, she has also worked in the Middle East as well as in Asia and Haiti. Dr Bartels is interested in using innovative methods to improve understanding of health-related topics in complex environments such as armed conflict and natural disasters.
ORCID
Sabine Lee http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4803-298X
Susan Bartels http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2782-3480
Notes
1 UN Department of Peacekeeping, “Peacekeeping Operations Data.”
2 Sotomayor, Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper, 1.
3 Moncrief, “Military Socialization,” 717–8.
4 Phal, “The Lessons of the UNTAC Experience,” 129, 133; Lupi, “Report by the Enquiry Commission,” 375; Higate, “Gender and Peacekeeping Case Studies”; “Investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services.”
5 Vandenberg, Hopes Betrayed; Simic, “Accountability of UN Civilian Police”; Allred, “Peacekeepers and Prostitutes,” 19, note 12.
6 UN General Assembly, “Special Measures for Protection,” 9–10.
7 UN General Assembly, “A Comprehensive Strategy” hereinafter cited as ‘Zeid Report’.
8 UN General Assembly, “Criminal Accountability of United Nations Officials.”
9 UN General Assembly, “Comprehensive Strategy on Assistance and Support.”
10 Lee, Children Born of War, 226–43.
11 Freedman, “UN Immunity or Impunity?” 961–85.
12 Complainants are defined as ‘Persons who allege, in accordance with established procedures, that they have been, or are alleged to have been, sexually exploited or abused by United Nations staff or related personnel, but whose claim has not yet been established through a United Nations administrative process or Member States’ processes’.
13 Victims are defined as ‘Persons whose claims that they have been sexually exploited or abused by United Nations staff or related personnel have been established through a United Nations administrative process or Member States’ processes.’
14 Simić and O’Brien, “‘Peacekeeper Babies’,” 346.
15 United Nations Security Council, “UNSCR 2467 (2019).”
16 UN General Assembly, “Special Measures for Protection.”
17 WILPF, “Rees on UN Security Council Resolution 2467.”
18 https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minustah. The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti is named after its French name: La Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti.
19 United Nations Security Council, “UNSCR 2350 (2017),” 9–10.
20 Ministère de la Santé et de la Population, “Profil statistique du cholera”, slide 6.
21 Yearman, The Cite Soleil Massacre Declassification Project.
For the purposes of this study, we use MINUSTAH personnel, agents, and peacekeepers interchangeably to refer to uniformed and non-uniformed foreign staff associated with MINUSTAH.
22 BBC News, “UN Troops face child abuse claims”; Kolbe, “It’s not a gift,” 7–19.
23 Dodds, “UN Peacekeepers in Haiti”; See also Snyder, UN SEA, 6–8.
24 Snyder, UN SEA, 3.
25 For challenges in determining the exact nature of relations on the spectrum from consensual to abusive relations see Simić, Regulations.
26 Lee, Children Born of War.
27 Glaesmer, “Die Kinder des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” 323.
28 For the purpose of this study, we used the hybrid term Petit MINUSTAH, identified as the most widely-used and commonly understood term for peacekeeper-fathered children in Haiti by the local Haitian research assistants.
29 Jennings, “The Immunity Dilemma.”
30 See Chang, “ When do-gooders do Harm,” 7–8; Odello and Burke, “Between Immunity and Impunity,” 845–9; O’Brien, Criminalising Peacekeepers, chapter 9.
31 For details see Freedman, “Unaccountable,” 966–70.
32 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, “Model Memorandum of Understanding.”
33 UN General Assembly (UNGA), “Model Status of Forces Agreement.”
34 Human Rights Council (submission to), On the abuse and sexual exploitation of Women, Girls, and young Men; see also Boon, “The United Nations as Good Samaritans,” 374–84.
35 Countries contributing military personnel were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, United States; countries contributing police and civilian personnel were Algeria, Benin, Brazil, Bukina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, CAR, Chad, Chile, China, Columbia, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Grenada, Guinea, India, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Madagascar, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federations, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Togo, Turkey, United States, Yemen. Uruguay.
36 GirlHub, “Using Sensemaker,” 2–3.
37 Cognitive Edge, “Sensemaker”; Senseguide, “What is Sensemaker?” slide 2.
38 Sample sizes represent the number of responses on each individual question and therefore vary across questions.
39 COMIDA refers to food.
40 DeLong, “Statistics in the Triad” parts I and II.
41 R Foundation, “R: The R Project for Statistical Computing”; DeLong, “Statistics in the Triad, part IV.”
42 Roupetz at al., “Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.”
43 Nordhås and Rustad, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse,” 522, 528–9.
44 Ibid; Karim and Beardsley, “Explaining Sexual Exploitation and Abuse,” 105–6.
45 Henry and Highgate, “Peacekeeping Power Practices,” 141–2.
46 E.g. Mudgway, “Sexual Exploitation by UN Peacekeepers,”1456, 1462.
47 UN Secretary-General, “Special Measures.”
48 McGill, “Survival Sex in Peacekeeping Economies”; Westendorf and Searle, “Sexual Exploitation,” 372, 376.
49 Jennings, “Service, Sex and Security,” 315–6; Smith, “Accountability,” 406, 413.
50 IJDH, “Briefing Note.”
51 IJDH, “Open Letter.”
52 Ibid., 1.