Hundreds of mixed-race children abandoned by U.N. workers.

Chron Watch, a site dedicated to a balanced presentation of the news has drawn attention to the plight of women and children who suffer at the hands of United Nations soldiers in war-torn nations.

The article itself is concerned with gun control and its effect on women who are described as the silent victims: ' Given that they are almost never the buyers, owners or users of small arms, (women) suffer disproportionately from armed violence.' (Denise Searle of Amnesty International)

It uses the behaviour of UN peacekeepers to illustrate how civilian disarmament does not necessarily make people safer and describes how in countries like the Congo, women and children not only have to deal with rape and abuse from their own soldiers but were also having to deal with unwanted pregnancies and health issues from peacekeepers.

In the Congo alone, there are 'estimated hundreds of mixed-race children abandoned by U.N. workers at the end of their 6-month tours of duty.'

One victim said: 'There is no help from the U.N. They just make women pregnant and leave. They never take care of their kids.'

Another victim 'contracted the AIDS virus from a peacekeeper, and has since passed it on to her husband and child.' The victim’s husband said: 'I know the United Nations is here to support us, but it’s unbelievable for me to see a thing like this. The one that came to support us is the one that took our ladies, who come to take everything.' The HIV infections are the result of the fact that 'current U.N. policy does not require peacekeepers to be tested for HIV before, during or after their deployments.'

The article goes on to list other countries throughout the world where U.N. peacekeepers were not only not protecting women and children but were also accused of participating in their abuse.

The U.N. response was to issue a report 'on how to hold accountable peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse and other violations in strife-torn parts of the world.' Kofi Annan was reported to be 'coming down on it hard.' Unfortunately, one military officer, with considerable experience supporting U.N. peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Sierra Leone and the Republic of Congo, had a more cautionary note to sound regarding the possibility of enforcing any rules against peacekeepers:

'It gets down to accountability and, the U.N. being an international body without sovereignty unto itself … It can’t prosecute acts of heinous crimes of personnel and soldiers given to it bymember states. If you [allow the U.N. to prosecute international personnel], then you supersede laws of the international nations … how much sovereignty does a state want to give up to the United Nations? And the answer is, not much.'

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