20165moon31A car bomb attack on a United Nations peacekeepers' camp in Gao, northern Mali, killed one peacekeeper on the night of10More than one person was injured, including5Chinese peacekeepers were injured.1People sacrificed. The news has touched the hearts of millions of compatriots. We pay high tribute to this group of great pacifists and thank the generations of great pacifist soldiers who have spilled their blood in exchange for the precious stability we enjoy today.

We do not deny that United Nations peacekeeping forces have made many proud contributions, but at this point we still have to reveal that not all peacekeeping forces are heroes! According to the French newspaper Le Monde, only2016Between the beginning of the year and May, the world has44Cases of sexual assaults against United Nations peacekeeping forces (1)2015Total for the year69(Up). There were even scandals of UN peacekeeping forces forcing refugees to have sex with dogs.

20158In January 2009, MINUSCA peacekeepers were accused of raping a12The victim was a young girl, aged 15 years, who also killed a boy and his father.2015surname Nian6month, peacekeepers were exposed as being in contact with Haitian200(b) Sexual transactions with several women, "paying" them for food, medicines and household goods.2014surname Nian7In January, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights received reports alleging that French soldiers in Central Africa had sexually abused and raped local children, the youngest of whom were as young as 8 or 9 years old. Since then, the handling of the matter by the United Nations system has been controversial.2013surname Nian12months to2014surname Nian6During the month, as many as14A French peacekeeping force soldier in Central Africa sexually abused more than a dozen local children.2014surname Nian1In January, the United Nations Office of Peacekeeping Forces sent a message to peacekeeping forces in various locations instructing them to deal with local residents claiming to have given birth to "peacekeepers' babies" due to the fact that, since2010surname Nian1Since January 2010, United Nations peacekeeping forces have received29In the case of the "Peace Corps baby" complaint, there were14Nearly half of the total number of cases involved underage girls.2005In 2007, the United Nations discovered that peacekeepers at the Stabilization Mission in the Congo were engaging in transactional sex with local women and underage girls, luring them into submission with food and meagre cash.

Is it a hero or a devil?

In 1988, United Nations peacekeeping forces were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In recent years, however, peacekeepers had flagrantly violated the code of conduct, bringing shame to the peacekeeping mission. There was a great contrast between the perpetrators and the victims: on the one hand, there were those whose mission it was to maintain world peace, and on the other hand, there were refugee populations suffering from wars, conflicts or natural disasters. They were counting on the United Nations and humanitarian partners to bring them out of the fire, but instead some of the peacekeepers had brutally exploited and abused them.

Nowadays no one can tell whether the once-respected peace fighters are now the heroes who saved them or the devils who are no different from the chaos fighters.

Root causes of the peacekeeping force scandal

In Mpoko, in the Central African capital of Bangui, a huge refugee camp made up of crude shacks, houses10More than 10,000 poor local people, many of them minors and many orphans, have fled the civil war. They are starving, the water and food provided by the international community is inadequate, the camps are chaotic, and violent looting for a bite of food is commonplace.

Minors are at the bottom of the food chain in the M'poko refugee camp and, unable to sell their labor for food or to gain the upper hand in the scramble for food aid, they look to the peacekeepers to do them justice, to help them take advantage of the scramble for food aid, or simply to get a share of the soldiers' ample rations. Because of the scarcity of resources, many women and children are totally dependent on outside assistance, often using their last resource - their bodies - to seek protection and help for themselves and their families.

Compared with them, the living conditions of peacekeepers on the ground are much better, which creates a huge difference in the status of rights between the two, and this unequal status difference is the root cause of sexual exploitation and abuse. It is clear that the peacekeepers are in a position of great power to determine the fate and even the survival of the women and children in these camps, and some of them use their "right to food" to blackmail these children to satisfy their own whims.

In an unannounced visit to the Mpoko refugee camp by the French new media, a teenager who witnessed the event and wished to remain anonymous confessed that "sometimes these foreign soldiers offer nothing more than a cookie, but it's enough to make poor children who don't even have enough cornmeal to eat go for it". In the view of the anxious and helpless mother, "a full meal is a temptation that is hard for these children to resist, not to mention all those colorful snacks that they suffer in the camps". Several media "informants" have pointed out that the children are both girls and boys, and that they are violated in a variety of ways, some of which are horrific. As local sources and observers familiar with the situation on the ground have frankly stated, "the atrocities that have been discovered are probably just the tip of the iceberg".

Because of the war, the local justice system is not working.

As a result of persistent political instability and poverty, local societies have been unable to establish complete legal and judicial systems, and where judicial authorities do exist, they have been severely undermined, and the rule of law is seldom, if ever, in place or is so ineffective as to be unenforceable. This means that crimes can be committed with impunity and are highly conducive to the commission of all kinds of crimes. The environment even has all the conditions for exploitative behaviors to occur, making it a breeding ground for sexual exploitation and abuse of refugees by peacekeepers.

Another factor contributing to criminality among members of peacekeeping operations is the United Nations itself, as well as within its peacekeeping missions:

The United Nations has no jurisdiction over criminal investigations

United Nations peacekeeping operations are neither mandatory nor purely diplomatic, but are a special tool that lies between voluntariness and coercion. Only Member States had the legal capacity to conduct criminal investigations and prosecute alleged offenders.

The fact that the United Nations does not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations, coupled with the status of peacekeeping forces and the complexity of their composition, makes the issue of crimes committed by insiders in relation to them more complex than that of crimes committed by personnel of international organizations in general. If the crime is committed in the host State and that State is not in a position to prosecute the alleged perpetrator or hold the perpetrator accountable, it will need to rely on other States to do so. If other States did not extend the application of their criminal laws to crimes committed in the territory of the host State, a jurisdictional gap would arise and the alleged perpetrator might escape prosecution. This requires a joint effort by the United Nations and the State of nationality of the perpetrator of the crime to address.

Consequently, the situation becomes more complex when the matter involves rape and sex with minors, which greatly increases the difficulty of accountability. This makes it extremely easy for United Nations peacekeepers to escape punishment, especially members of military contingents from various contributing countries who are military members of peacekeeping forces. Although the General Assembly of the United Nations in2003surname Nian4moon15Adoption of the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on57/306The Secretary-General has also issued a bulletin on special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.(st/sgb/2003/13)Thirteen years on, the large number of instances of sexual assault that continue to exist within United Nations missions illustrates the apparent inadequacy of existing guidelines, policies and procedures and organizational accountability mechanisms.

It was suggested that the elaboration of a jurisdiction-related extradition treaty, whereby parties to an extradition treaty could at least coordinate extradition, would greatly facilitate criminal accountability for crimes committed by peacekeepers, thereby closing jurisdictional gaps and reducing impunity. The disadvantage of this proposal, however, is that an extradition treaty is only valid for the parties, thus limiting its scope of application, as not all States are willing to conclude an extradition treaty between themselves. Moreover, the development of treaties usually takes a long time.

Abuse of functional immunity of peacekeepers

For a long time since the implementation of peacekeeping operations, the United Nations and its Member States have not focused on pre-service training for peacekeepers to enhance their awareness of their rights and obligations, nor have they clearly defined the nature of the immunity of personnel involved in peacekeeping. Although in recent years, the United Nations and its Member States have been paying more attention to the issue of crimes committed by members of peacekeeping operations, and have increased their efforts to hold them accountable, the provisions regulating immunities have also been improved, for example, the Model Status of Forces Agreement for Peacekeeping Operations clearly stipulates that "military members of national contingents assigned to serve in the military forces of a United Nations peacekeeping operation shall enjoy the privileges and immunities specifically provided for in the present Agreement" (see annex). privileges and immunities specifically provided for in this Agreement". The perpetrators of criminal acts are increasingly unable to rely on their privileges and immunities to escape justice. In practice, however, the system for regulating immunities is still not perfect, and in addition to the limited awareness of the provisions on immunities among peacekeeping military personnel, abuses of immunity are often not duly punished, and crimes committed as a result of such abuses are not uncommon.

Gender imbalance in peacekeeping forces

Female peacekeepers have proved to be as, if not more, effective than male peacekeepers in all areas of peacekeeping, by the same standards and under the same difficult conditions. Female peacekeepers played a model role on the ground, often encouraging women and minors in male-dominated host societies to fight for their rights and participate in the peace process. They not only strengthen the rights of women and minors in the host country, talk to the victims of sexual abuse and give them the necessary help, but also reduce conflict and confrontation and raise the awareness of the local population, including women and children, about security. At present, however, women account for only about half of the peacekeepers serving in United Nations missions.3%The police accounted for about10%of international civilian personnel30%There is a serious gender imbalance between men and women within the peacekeeping forces.

All the chaos grows because of imperfect supervision.

Effective oversight and investigation of wrongdoing by peacekeepers is a major issue that has a bearing on the fulfilment of the Organization's international responsibilities and on whether those who have been victimized can obtain appropriate redress. However, the investigation and oversight mechanism within peacekeeping forces is not perfect; some supervisors and commanders are weak in enforcing discipline, condoning improper dealings between military personnel and the general population, and even harbouring and condoning crimes committed by their subordinates; there are insufficient military and police patrols, so that off-duty peacekeepers have no work to do; and some peacekeepers do not receive systematic training in the Code of Conduct, among other things.

After a crime has been committed, on the one hand, the mission's investigative procedures are so cumbersome that the optimal time for investigation is often missed. As stated in the Directive on Disciplinary Matters Involving Civilian Police Officers and Military Observers, "the mission's investigative process consists of a preliminary investigation and a board of inquiry". The head of mission establishes a board of inquiry only if the preliminary investigation indicates that the report of serious misconduct appears to be well founded. The Board of Inquiry then establishes the facts and then determines the cause of and responsibility for the incident under investigation. These investigations then take a long time, and even when they are initiated, the victim may forget many of the important circumstances because of the length of time and the shock, thus missing the optimal time for investigation and evidence collection.

On the other hand, investigators are not highly professional. Most of them are "enthusiastic amateurs" who lack professional training and experience in investigative techniques and are therefore likely to violate procedural requirements, overlook or lose important evidence. Mishandling of evidence can lead to inadmissibility in court. In addition, there is a high rate of rotation of peacekeeping personnel. The frequent rotation of peacekeeping personnel, especially those in the field, coupled with the lack of cooperation or even deliberate obstruction of investigations by supervisors or commanders, has made it impossible to specify the names of the perpetrators of many allegations, or even to correctly identify the perpetrators, thus defeating the United Nations intent to hold its peacekeepers accountable for their wrongful acts.

In short, the root cause of sexual exploitation and abuse is the unequal power relationship - the huge status difference between peacekeepers and the local population. Only by eliminating such differences and guaranteeing a basic standard of living for the local population can serious sexual assaults such as sexual exploitation and abuse be fundamentally eliminated. Restoring and developing the local economy, rebuilding the socio-political system and the judicial system, raising the basic standard of living of the local people, and reducing dependence on foreign assistance and protection are the most basic and important. Responsibility is the key to solving the problem of sexual assault. The core of responsibility lies in the effective functioning of monitoring, reporting and investigation mechanisms, cross-sectoral and interdepartmental cooperation and communication, and the creation and maintenance of a relationship of mutual trust and easy communication between the mission and the host country.

Women and children displaced by conflict or other disasters are among the most unfortunate people in the world, and they yearn for safe havens provided by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners. Only the joint role of the United Nations, its Member States and the host countries, in terms of prevention of misconduct, firm implementation of the standards of United Nations peacekeeping operations and the adoption of relief measures, can make United Nations peacekeeping operations function effectively and thus become a truly effective means of maintaining peace in the world!