https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2782-3480
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The narrow framing of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and the United Nations Zero-Tolerance Policy inadequately accounts for the range of sexual interactions in peacekeeping contexts and obscures the wider social contexts within which sexual decision making occurs. We draw on personal narratives from women who have had such sexual interactions, as well as community observers to demonstrate the complexity, multiple forms and ambiguities that characterize these relationships. We focus particularly on ‘love’ and long-term relationships. The complexities revealed cast doubt on the efficacy and appropriateness of the UN’s zero-tolerance policy and call for a modification of the concept of the peacekeeping economy to include consideration of intimacy, emotion and quests to fulfil expectations of gendered social roles in the contradictory landscape of peacekeeping.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Oldenburg, “Politics of Love and Intimacy”; Simic, “Rethinking ‘Sexual Exploitation’”.
2 Westendorf and Searle, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”; Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
3 Henry, “Parades, Parties and Pests”; Higate and Henry, “Space, Performance and Everyday Security”; Henry and Natanel, “Militarisation as Diffusion”.
4 Jennings et al., “Agency and Exploitation”. The invisibility and silence around peacekeeper relationships with (fewer) local boys and men is a concern for our project team; see Coombs and von Hlaky, “Blind Spots”.
5 Henry, “Keeping the Peace”; Otto, “Rethinking Peace”; Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights.
6 McGill, “Survival Sex”; Jennings, “Service, Sex and Security”.
7 Westendorf and Searle, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”; Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
8 Simm, Sex in Peace Operations, 171.
9 Simm, Sex in Peace Operations. Please see chapter 6 for a detailed account of UN responses in DRC.
10 Clark, “UN Peacekeeping,” 368–72; Freedman, Gender, Violence and Politics, 123.
11 Freedman, Gender, Violence and Politics, 123.
12 Autesserre, “Trouble with Congo”; Freedman, Gender, Violence and Politics.
13 United Nations Peacekeeping, “MONUSCO Fact Sheet”. The number of troops on the ground at any one time will fluctuate.
14 The rotational nature of peacekeeping personnel is supported by Henry, “Parades, Parties, and Pests,” 3.
15 Mudgway, “Sexual Exploitation by UN Peacekeepers”.
16 United Nations Secretariat, Secretary-General’s Bulletin.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Otto, “Making Sense of Zero Tolerance Policies”.
20 Simic, “Rethinking Sexual Exploitation”, Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
21 Bartels et al., “‘Peace Babies’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo”.
22 See Lee and Bartels, “They Put a Few Coins in Your Hand”; Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”; Vahedi et al., “Gender-Stratified Analysis”; and Wagner et al., “If I Was With My Father” for examples.
23 Cognitive Edge. SenseMaker 2017 [Available from: https://sensemaker.cognitive-edge.com.]
24 60 interviews conducted with mothers of PKFC, 4 interviews conducted with grandmothers/other guardians, 2 interviews with foster mothers.
25 Gibson, “Narratives of Love and Exchange”.
26 Research Assistants produced transcribed interviews, often using different formats and with varying expertise in transcribing the languages used in the interviews into English.
27 Jennings, “Service, Sex, and Security”; Henry, “Parades, Parties and Pests”; Henry and Natanel, “Militarisation as Diffusion”.
28 Jennings, “Sex, Service and Security”.
29 Oldenburg, “Politics of Love and Intimacy,” 318.
30 Ibid., 317–18.
31 Buscher and Vlassenroot, “Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development,” 265.
32 Feminist analysis prefers the term ‘sex worker’ over ‘prostitute’, given the stigma of the latter term. We use prostitute here because it is the term used in the local translation of the narratives, and indeed better conveys the social disapproval expressed by people in the community.
33 WK 3- S813, ID1203 – Woman aged 18-24, separated from partner, living in Goma, some primary school education
34 Jennings, Protecting Whom? 314–16.
35 Jennings, “Service, Sex, and Security”, 316; Idem., “Life in a ‘Peace-Kept’ City,” 300.
36 Raven-Roberts, “Women and the Political Economy of War,” 46–7; Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases.
37 Beber et al., “Peacekeeping Compliance”; Jennings, “Unintended Consequences”; Idem., “Service, Sex, and Security”, Idem., “Life in a ‘Peace-Kept’ City”; Maclin et al., “‘They Have Embraced a Different Behaviour’”; McGill, “Survival Sex”; McMillan, Worth, and Rawstone, “Usage of the Terms”.
38 Lee and Bartels, “They Put a Few Coins in Your Hand”; Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”; Vahedi et al., “Gender-Stratified Analysis”.
39 Oldenburg, “Politics of Love and Intimacy”.
40 LN 8–561.
41 WK 1–S73; emphasis in original transcript.
42 Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”.
43 LN 8–480.
44 WK 1–S49.
45 Jennings, Cree, and Kirkwood, “Agency and Exploitation”.
46 United Nations, Glossary on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, 6; International Committee of the Red Cross, Customary International Humanitarian Law; Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute.
47 Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”.
48 Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights; Simm, Sex in Peacekeeping, 33.
49 Simm, Sex in PeaceKeeping; Henry, “Keeping the Peace”.
50 Bunia, mother of one child fathered by a peacekeeper, unmarried, age unknown, STE-000.
51 Wagner et al., “If I Was With My Father”.
52 Lake, Muthaka, and Walker, “Gendering Justice”.
53 Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”.
54 Higate and Henry, “Engendering (In)Security,” 482.
55 WK 2–S544; emphasis added.
56 WK 3–S772; emphasis added.
57 Cole and Thomas, Love in Africa, 3.
58 Underhill, Ethnolinguistics.
59 Cole, “Love, Money, and Economies of Intimacy,” 111–12.
60 WK 1–S190.
61 Maclin et al., “They Have Embraced a Different Behaviour,” 121; McMillan, “Use of the Terms,” 1521.
62 LN 1–153.
63 Maclin et al., “They Have Embraced a Different Behaviour”.
64 Wagner et al., “If I Was With My Father”.
65 WK 1–S203.
66 WK 3–S797.
67 WK 1–S23, S25, S73, S171, S203.
68 LN 8–361.
69 LN 1–94.
70 LN 8–263.
71 WK 3 – S875, 947; LN 1–130, 165; LN 8–335.
72 LN 8–327, ID981.
73 WK 2–S397.
74 STE-002 Groupe Lingala 12.07.2018 Mere L1B-Beni.
75 Findings from Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”; Lee and Bartels, “They Put a Few Coins in Your Hand”; and Wagner et al., “If I Was With My Father” attest to the common occurrence of local women being ‘abandoned’ or left by peacekeepers.
76 WK 2–S675; LN 1–136; ID2689; ID1325; ID1352.
77 United Nations Secretariat, Secretary-General’s Bulletin.
78 United Nations, Glossary on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, 6.
79 LN 1–179.
80 United Nations Peacekeeping, “MONUSCO Fact Sheet”.
81 Ibid.
82 True, “Women, Peace and Security”; Westendorf and Searle, “Sexual Exploitation”.
83 Kovatch, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”; Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
84 McGill, “Survival Sex,” 2, 25.
85 Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, “His Future Will Not be Bright”.
86 Ibid.
87 King, Lee, and Bartels, “They Were Going to the Beach”.
88 Marsha, “Parades, Parties and Pests,” 10.
89 Ibid; Higate and Henry, “Engendering (In)Security”.
90 Ibid.
91 Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
92 Vahedi et al., “Gender-Stratified Analysis,” 221.
93 Simm, Sex in Peace Operations.
94 Vahedi, Bartels, and Lee, ‘Even Peacekeepers Expect Something”.
95 Vahedi et al., “Gendered-Stratified Analysis”.
96 Ibid.
97 Simm, Sex in Peace Operations, 166.
98 Maclin et al., “‘They Have Embraced a Different Behaviour’”.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Kaitlin Gibson
Kaitlin Gibson is a Program Associate with United Way, Kingston. She graduated with a Master’s in Global Development Studies from Queen’s University.
Alina Dixon
Alina Dixon is a doctoral candidate in the department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She studies the knowledge politics of youth peacebuilding.
Allison Goebel
Allison Goebel is Professor in Environmental Studies at Queen’s University in Canada. She is the author of Gender and Land Reform. The Zimbabwean Experience 2005, and On Their Own: Women, Urbanization and the Right to the City in South Africa 2015.
Susan Bartels
Susan Bartels is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Queen’s and holds a cross-appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences. She is a practicing emergency physician and conducts global public health research focused on how women and children are impacted by humanitarian crises.