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New Delhi: The United
Nations has no reports of alleged sexual violence by Indian troops
In Kashmir, a senior UN official said here Wednesday.
"So far, we do not have proper reports about this....so far, we have
not received any proper reporting on such cases....I can't say that
there was anything in particular (about Kashmir)," the UN secretary
general's special representative on sexual violence in conflict,
Margot Wallstrom, told reporters here.
She, however, said that the UN has now asked her to establish a
mechanism by which reports and data on sexual violence against women
by warring groups in conflict zones or by peacekeepers can be
obtained.
"What I have been asked to do now is to set up a mechanism so we can
also collect information about the incidents. This is to monitor and
report as much data as possible," Wallstrom said.
Such mechanism will soon come up in UN missions in the African
countries and in Bosnia, she said.
UN assistant secretary-general for field support Antony Banbury said
peacekeepers indulging in sex, be it consensual or transactional
with local women, in conflict zones was "unacceptable" to the world
body and that the secretary general followed a "zero tolerance
policy" on such kind of sexual abuses by troops.
"This conduct of peacekeepers...the secretary-general's policy is
clearly zero tolerance policy and that includes even cases where
there is consensual sex between a UN peacekeeper and local women or
a transactional sex using a prostitute. In many countries, this is
an accepted behaviour and it is not criminal, but it is unacceptable
of UN peacekeepers. We have a very high bar," Banbury said.
"This kind of sexual behaviour and violence hurts not only the
victim, it is terrible for the United Nations, our reputation, our
ability to work with those population, to help them," he said.
However, he noted that the UN missions had made tremendous effort to
train peacekeepers.
"We have a very large number of peacekeepers...there are about
110,000 deployed now. But, because of rotations every six months or
so, we cycle through over 200,000 peacekeepers every year. So
training burden is very high and we dedicate a lot of resources to
it," he added.
He also objected to comparison between sexual violence by warring
societies on their women and that of peacekeepers.
Giving the example of eastern Congo in Africa, Bunbury said sexual
violence was "a pattern" there and was "promoted by leaders of the
militias".
"But there is no pattern of UN soldiers indulging in rape or in
transactional sex," he said.
Noting that sexual violence against women was more often used as "a
weapon of war" by militias in troubled zones, Wallstrom said such
behaviour was a threat to peace and security of peacekeeping
missions.
She said the militias used sexual violence as a "cheap, effective
and silent" weapon.
Wallstrom said the UN was now working on compiling best practices of
peacekeepers in conflict zones to prevent sexual violence against
local women so that it could be part of the training curriculum for
the troop contributing countries.
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