Close X
Thursday, January 16, 2025
ADVT 
National

Canada Urged To Lead Fight Against United Nations Peacekeeper Sex Abuse

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 26 Jan, 2016 01:32 PM
    OTTAWA — With the Trudeau Liberals pledging a return to peacekeeping, Canada is being urged to play a leading role in stamping out what is being described as rampant sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers.
     
    Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, is one of the leaders of an international coalition for the creation of an independent management board to oversee UN peacekeeping.
     
    Lewis, co-chair of the Code Blue coalition, wants Canada to lead the charge in UN corridors to wrestle control of peacekeeping away from the UN and place it with an independent board, similar to a bankruptcy trustee.
     
    Lewis and others are accusing top UN brass of turning a blind eye to systemic sexual abuse by peacekeepers.
     
    The coalition has been calling for UN reform following the scandal that erupted last year in the Central African Republic with child sex abuse allegations against French soldiers involving boys as young as nine.
     
    Another Canadian, retired Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps, co-authored a report released last month that accused the UN of a "gross institutional failure" because of how it responded to the abuse allegations.
     
    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commissioned Deschamps's report last year after Lewis's organization raised concerns about the scandal.
     
    Lewis said the Canadian government can lead a diplomatic push to clean up peacekeeping because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants Canada to play a bigger role in future missions, while re-engaging more broadly with the UN.
     
    "I think that Canada has a very considerable role to play in making certain that sexual exploitation and abuse is high on the agenda of what we do around peacekeeping hereafter."
     
    Canada has already played a lead role behind the scenes to press Ban to appoint Deschamps and her panel to review the allegations, said Lewis.
     
     
    But with Canada's new UN ambassador assuming his post in New York in April, and the Liberal government's renewed focus on multilateralism, "there can be a new tone set on the part of Canada," said Lewis.
     
    The coalition is pressing the UN to lift the blanket immunity that protects its diplomats because it says many civilian employees know about peacekeeping abuses, but have done nothing to stop it.
     
    Paula Donovan, the American women's rights activist who is Lewis's co-chair, said Canada has a vested interest in cleaning up peacekeeping because "they essentially invented peacekeeping, and I think many Canadians feel proudly attached to that legacy."
     
    Backed by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, former external affairs minister Lester Pearson proposed the first UN peacekeeping mission in 1956 to help defuse the Suez Crisis — for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize a year later.
     
    In recent decades, however, Canada's contribution to UN peacekeeping has dwindled to a few dozen troops.
     
    Canada is still one of the top 10 financial supporters of UN peacekeeping missions, but Trudeau has said he wants to see Canadian troops playing a more active role in future missions.
     
    Trudeau has said he expects Canada can contribute specialized leadership, such as engineers, or leverage the bilingualism of senior officers instead of contributing large numbers of infantry troops.
     
    Developing countries such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have become the leading contributors of troops to peacekeeping missions since the passing of Canada's heyday in the 1990s.

    MORE National ARTICLES

    Motherisk Drug And Alcohol Testing Program 'Inadequate And Unreliable': Review

    Motherisk Drug And Alcohol Testing Program 'Inadequate And Unreliable': Review
    TORONTO — A controversial program that uses hair analysis to test for drug and alcohol use in thousands of child protection and criminal cases was deemed "inadequate and unreliable" in a government-commissioned report released Thursday.

    Motherisk Drug And Alcohol Testing Program 'Inadequate And Unreliable': Review

    New Brunswick Minister Seeking Second Opinion About Funding For Expensive Drug

    New Brunswick Minister Seeking Second Opinion About Funding For Expensive Drug
    FREDERICTON — New Brunswick's health minister says he will seek a second opinion about the province's decision not to pay for an expensive drug that could help a 10-year-old boy suffering from a rare genetic disorder.

    New Brunswick Minister Seeking Second Opinion About Funding For Expensive Drug

    Quebec Government In Court To Appeal Injunction Against Assisted-dying Law

    Quebec Government In Court To Appeal Injunction Against Assisted-dying Law
    MONTREAL — Quebec government lawyers will be in court today to appeal an injunction that was aimed at blocking a provincial law on assisted dying. 

    Quebec Government In Court To Appeal Injunction Against Assisted-dying Law

    Valiant US Sikh Store-Owner, 59, Fights Off Armed Robber With Only Slipper

    Valiant US Sikh Store-Owner, 59, Fights Off Armed Robber With Only Slipper
    In a feat caught on surveillance cameras, the 59-year-old Amrik Singh fought off a shotgun-wielding masked robber using only his slipper in the store at his petrol station in Staatsburg, about 150 km from New York City.

    Valiant US Sikh Store-Owner, 59, Fights Off Armed Robber With Only Slipper

    Police Seek Cheetah Spotted Along Southeast B.C. Highway 3A Near Creston

    Police Seek Cheetah Spotted Along Southeast B.C. Highway 3A Near Creston
    RCMP in Creston said the cheetah was spotted along Highway 3A on Thursday at about 4:30 p.m. in the Crawford Bay and Kootenay Bay areas.

    Police Seek Cheetah Spotted Along Southeast B.C. Highway 3A Near Creston

    One Flat Fee Real Estate Donates $1,500 To The BC Children’s Hospital

    One Flat Fee Real Estate Donates $1,500 To The BC Children’s Hospital
    Oneflatfee, the largest flat fee MLS service in western Canadadonated $ 1,500 to the BC Children’s hospital on December 15th

    One Flat Fee Real Estate Donates $1,500 To The BC Children’s Hospital