Members of a UN peacekeeping mission engaged in “transactional sex” with more than 225 Haitian women, according to a new report, which suggests that sexual exploitation remains significantly under-reported in such missions.

The draft by the UN office of internal oversight services (OIOS) looks at the way UNpeacekeeping, which has about 125,000 people in some of the world’s most troubled areas, deals with the persistent problem of sexual abuse and exploitation.

The report, obtained by the Associated Press and expected to be released this month, highlights ongoing challenges, a decade after a groundbreaking UN report first tackled the issue.

It says about a third of alleged sexual abuse involves minors under 18; assistance to victims is “severely deficient”; and the average investigation by OIOS, which says it prioritises cases involving minors or rape, takes more than a year.

An investigation conducted a year ago in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, interviewed women who said they had had transactional sexual relationships with UN peacekeepers. “For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby-care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the ‘triggering need’,” the report says. Women received “church shoes”, cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money.
Guardian