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SA’s UN peacekeeping troops top the list of sexual predators

A damning report released by the United Nations recently has exposed that the South African troops tops the list of sexual predators on UN peacekeeping missions

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The incriminating report by the United Nations has divulged that South Africa which has has about 2 000 United Nations peacekeeping troops stationed in the DRC, Sudan and South Sudan tops the list of offending nations. This is regardless of the fact that the country is not the biggest contributor of forces to the UN missions.

The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services report which mainly focused on sexual offences committed by peacekeepers on missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan and South Sudan, Liberia and Haiti, revealed that it had received 480 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse relating to the UN peacekeeping and special political missions between 2008 and 2013.

Although the details of the allegations are not given in the report, South African soldiers are leading with nine allegations, followed by Uruguay which has eight allegations and Nigeria with seven allegations.This damaging revelation emerged at a time when the UN is embroiled in a controversy involving the allegations of suppressing the sexual abuses of women and children in the Central African Republic by French peacekeepers deployed to the country in 2014

Reports by The Times state that, out of the 480 accusations involving sexual exploitation pertaining to the UN peacekeeping and special political missions between 2008 and 2013, the DRC peacekeeping mission accounted for 45% of these allegations, while just over a third of the 480 allegations involved minors.

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Source: Times Live