Sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers - PeaceWomen

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Carlyn van der Mark
Political Science Master Thesis - Sexual exploitation and UN peacekeepers
Section 3 focused on bringing agency to the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. This
was done by discussing the domestic context as a factor that explained for the failure of the
zero tolerance policy. Section 3 aimed to highlight the socio-economic reasons that caused
women and teenage girls to engage in survival sex with U.N peacekeepers. The U.N refers to
the women and teenage girls as victims which takes away their agency. One needs to
understand why women are engaging in survival sex to create an environment whereby there
is no sexual exploitation. Unfortunately it was difficult to test hypothesis III. Nonetheless,
some interesting perceptions were made. The U.N focuses on prevention strategies from an
internal perspective. That means to say there is little resource allocation towards the domestic
context in preventing sexual exploitation. Instead section 3 indicated that resource allocation
was directed in preoccupying the peacekeepers leisure time. This is not a strategy to enforce
the zero tolerance policy because there is no understanding of why the zero tolerance policy
is in place.
No thesis is without its limitations. One of the biggest limitations of researching allegations
of sexual exploitation and abuse are that the cases are hidden stories. Sexual exploitation and
abuse is a difficult subject to address. Some women and teenage girls may feel ashamed after
such an act and prevent further discussions about the topic. The lack of evidence in cases of
sexual exploitation and abuse makes it even more difficult to address from an institutional
level. Another limitation to the thesis is the lack of information provided by the U.N. The
U.N does not publicize which troop contributing country is associated with allegations of
sexual exploitation and abuse. This limits the ability to understand which legal systems have
problems with prosecuting troops involved with sexual exploitation and abuse. Further
research could be done on one specific troop contributing country to investigate the legal
difficulties in implementing a zero tolerance policy. Furthermore, the U.N is now considering
to black-list certain troop contributing countries with allegations of sexual exploitation and
abuse. Further research could be done on the implementation of such a ban on peacekeeping
missions and the zero tolerance policy.
The difficulty of analyzing the zero tolerance policy from an all rounded perspective is that
each peacekeeping mission is unique. This thesis focused on the DRC and Haiti as examples
whereby the zero tolerance policy fails. However, each domestic context is unique with
different historical backgrounds that explain for women‟s position in society, environmental
circumstances and economic position. This makes every domestic context unique with their