Associated Press
Friday, December 1, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 30 -- Nearly 180 soldiers, civilians and police officers in U.N. peacekeeping missions have been targeted for disciplinary action for sexual abuse since the beginning of 2004, the chief U.N. spokesman said Thursday.

Despite the U.N.'s "zero tolerance," said Stéphane Dujarric, "acts of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeeping personnel continue to occur."

Since January 2004, the United Nations has investigated 319 peacekeeping personnel in all U.N. missions, Dujarric said.

"These resulted in the summary dismissal of 18 civilians and the repatriation on disciplinary grounds of 17 police and 144 military personnel," he said.

The U.N. peacekeeping department's conduct and discipline team reported that since it was established in 2005, its list of peacekeepers repatriated on disciplinary grounds for sexual exploitation and abuse includes 12 peacekeepers from Nepal, 7 from Uruguay, 4 from Nigeria, 4 from Senegal, 2 from Benin, 2 from Ethiopia, 2 from Togo and 1 each from France, Ghana, India, Niger and South Africa.

Dujarric was responding to a BBC report that said children had been subjected to rape and prostitution by U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia. The BBC said girls told of regular encounters with soldiers who demanded sex in return for food or money.

The specific case mentioned in Haiti took place in November 2004, Dujarric said, adding that the allegations were not upheld by two U.N. investigations. The incident in Liberia reportedly took place on Nov. 15, but Dujarric said the U.N. mission in Liberia had received no report in the last two months of any cases involving minors.

The U.N. peacekeeping department instituted the zero tolerance policy last year following an investigation that found that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.