INTER PRESS SERVICE

News Agency

Leaked Internal Documents Show U.N. Ignored Child

Abuse
By Roger Hamilton-Martin

Anders Kompass, Director for Field Operations and Technical Cooperation of the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, was asked to resign after leaking the report on child abuse by French
peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Credit: UN Photo/Violaine Martin
UNITED NATIONS, May 29 2015 (IPS) - Leaked United Nations documents show high-level staff knew of abuses by
soldiers in the Central African Republic and failed to act, all while planning the removal of U.N. whistleblower Anders
Kompass.
Twenty-three soldiers from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea are implicated in the abuse, according to one of the
reports.

The documents, released Friday by the organisation AIDS-Free World as part of their Code Blue campaign, implicate the
U.N. in making no attempt to stop the ongoing crimes or protect children, and then scrambling to cover up inaction.
The documents indicate a total failure of the U.N. to act on claims of sexual abuse, even when they know that U.N.
involvement might be the surest route to stopping crimes and ensuring justice, said Paula Donovan, AIDS-Free Worlds
co-director, in a statement.
Included in the leak is Anders Kompass own account of the events, which shows his claim that he was asked to resign by
the High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, who was acting on a request from the head of
U.N. Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous.
Another revelation is an email chain involving Joan Dubinsky, Director, U.N. Ethics Office; Susana Malcorra, Chef de
Cabinet, Executive Office of the Secretary-General; Carman Lapointe, Under Secretary General for Office for Internal
Oversight Services; and Zeid Raad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the subject
CONFIDENTIAL Call from DPR Sweden regarding Anders Kompass, dated Apr. 7-10, 2015, detailing discussions
across U.N. departments about Kompass case.
AIDS-Free World suggested that the latest documents bring into question the independence of the U.N.s Office for
Internal Oversight Services and Ethics Office, which is supposed to operate at arms length from the rest of the U.N.
system, to ensure accountability.
The documents show that the U.N. Childrens Fund (UNICEF) had evidence of abuse by the soldiers on May 19, 2014.
Then, during a June 18 interview, a 13-year-old boy said he couldnt number all the times hed been forced to perform
oral sex on soldiers but the most recent had been between June 8 and 12, 2014 several weeks after the first UNICEF
interview.
By agreeing to be interviewed by the UN, the children expected the abuse to stop and the perpetrators to be arrested.
When children report sexual abuse, adults must report it to the authorities. A child needs protection and, by definition,
does not have the agency to decide whether to press charges. They deserved the protection they assumed they would
receive once the UN knew of their abuse, AIDS-Free World said in a statement.