‘Gender-Blind’ Peacekeeping: Blue Helmets as the Perpetrators of Human Rights Violations

By Caglar Dolek * Muslim India

“In certain villages bordering conflict zones, young girls have admitted that armed men come in at night – these girls are used as sex workers – they are not allowed to protest – they are not allowed to lock their doors and the whole community tolerates this because these armed men protect the community – so it is a trade-off.” (The Report of International Committee of the Red Cross, 2005)

The above stated observation of the International Committee of the Red Cross clearly demonstrates how the UN peacekeeping operations fundamentally lack a gender dimension which would ensure and secure the women’s human rights in the conflict-torn countries. In cases like Bosnia, Kosovo, Cambodia, Congo and many others, the acts of sexual abuse by the UN peacekeepers have been reported causing serious debates on the contradictory nature of the peacekeeping operations.

The presents study tries to critically evaluate the ‘gender dimension’ of the UN peacekeeping in order to uncover the contradictory nature of the UN operations. For that aim, the paper firstly provides an insight for the transforming nature of conflict in the post-Cold War era which has ‘necessitated’ the novel approach to the peacekeeping operations. Secondly, the paper makes a critical analysis of the peacekeeping operations with special emphasis on the problem of sexual exploitation of women and children by the peacekeepers. Arguing that the peacekeeping should have a ‘gender dimension’, the paper scrutinizes in the third part the formal and institutional mechanisms of the UN to address the issue. Then, the paper ends up with the argument that without a gendered approach to peace operations and with the endurance of patriarchal codes of subordination, the UN operations are likely to remain as the ‘perpetuators’ of the human rights violations in the conflict-torn countries, rather than the other way around.

‘New Generation of Peacekeeping’

The United Nations officially came into being on 24 October 1945, having a fundamental purpose of maintaining international peace and security. Such a purpose is summarized in the Article 1(1) of the UN Charter, which states that the primary aim of the UN is “to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

Generally speaking, the UN performs this duty through three different, but closely interlinked, ways and/or processes: peaceful settlement, collective security and peacekeeping. As a matter of this paper, the peacekeeping has experienced a radical transformation both in terms of purpose and nature especially since the end of the Cold War. This transformation has been largely conditioned by the alteration of the traditional notion of sovereignty in the wake of the new categories of conflicts experienced in many developing countries.

This transformation was first reflected in the policies of the UN in early 1990s, with a document called ‘An Agenda for Peace’ prepared by the Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali. The document opened a new phase in the UN peacekeeping operations by making a novel definition of sovereignty and by altering the nature of peacekeeping.

An Agenda for Peace provided that there emerged novel types of conflicts ranging from ethnic clashes to the humanitarian disasters with the end of the Cold War. Rather than the inter-state security matters, it was observed, the internal problems of the individual countries have become the major concerns for security. Moreover, the report made it clear that an approach based on the traditional notion of sovereignty, as centered on the nation state, was not sufficient to resolve the problems arising in the form of humanitarian disasters. It was argued that the judicial sovereignty, which had been the basis of the international system for centuries, was no longer justifiable in the wake of severe human rights violations committed by the ‘sovereign’ states in their domestic affairs. Then, the notion of empirical sovereignty was advocated in order to emphasize the point that the individual state should now act in accordance with the basic standards of human rights as recognized in the international treaties and documents.

This transformation in fact indicated a radical alteration of the philosophy of intervention by the UN. Prior to this time, the UN peacekeeping operations had been conducted in accordance with the provisions provided by the Chapter VI of the UN Charter, entitled as the Pacific Settlement of Disputes. During the Cold War, the UN conducted various peacekeeping operations but with the aim of containing the conflict within its geographical context. Otherwise, in an environment of Cold War, the small-scale conflicts might cause much serious ones in the international arena with the natural exacerbation of the ideological rivalry. Having based on such a rationale, the UN peacekeeping functioned as the buffer zone between the conflicting parties, engaged in non-use of force (with the exception of self-defense) and required the consent of the parties to the conflict. That is, because the post-1945 settlement greatly embraced the notions of non-intervention and sovereign equality as embodied in the domestic jurisdiction clause of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter, the UN peacekeeping operations did not carry out any acts inconsistent with the fundamental principle of the sovereignty.

However, as discussed above, the end of Cold War brought a fundamental transformation of the peace operations under the mandate of the UN.[1] This transformation has gradually brought the peacekeeping operations under the umbrella of the Chapter VII of the Charter. With reference to that chapter, the peace operations became to be conducted without the consent of the host countries, and large-scale military force began to be utilized. One of the earliest examples was the First Gulf War justified by the US-led international forces on the grounds of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Then, the examples multiplied from Somalia to Bosnia to Rwanda in the 1990s.

Speaking in terms of the rationale behind the ‘new generation of peacekeeping’ operations, the notion of human rights played a central role behind all these operations. However, as discussed in the next section, the UN peacekeepers in time turned out to be the ‘perpetuators’ of the human rights violations because of the ‘gender-blind’ understanding of the peacekeeping.

UN Peacekeepers as the Perpetuators of the Human Rights Violations
It has been a widely accepted argument that the women and children constitute the most vulnerable parts of the society especially in times of conflict. With due regard, Rajoo successfully summarizes the sufferings of the women by stating that the women and children in times of conflict are further confronted by poverty, economic instability and ‘the ability to enjoy rights as women and as human beings is simply diminished.’Then, the writer continues: “The increasing lack of economic opportunities, their status as second-class citizens, the loss of their family networks, particularly the men, through conscription, displacement, detainment and even death, leaves women exposed to greater challenges of unemployment, poverty, insecurity and violence notwithstanding bereavement and the psychological scars they must still endure. For their survival, women are forced to seek new methods of coping to not only help sustain themselves but their surviving families as well. The vast majority of internally displaced persons and refugees across conflict-ridden Africa are women. Without access to employment and the reality of unequal gender relations, they do not have adequate food, shelter, money or goods, and are forced into or become easily exposed to prostitution and rape, using their bodies to acquire these items for their survival.”

Thinking within this context, one should read the issue of sexual abuse of women and children by the peacekeepers as a manifestation of a much larger socio-economic problem exacerbated in times of conflict. Then, the issue of peacekeeping inevitably relates to the question of gender.

The peacekeepers’ involvement in the acts of sexual exploitation of women and children was first reported in early 1990s in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo by media and human rights groups. Later, the UN peacekeepers came into the world agenda with same acts in Mozambique, Cambodia, East Timor, Sierra Leona and Liberia. The most dramatic allegations have been coming from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC). Only from February 2003 to October 2005, there were almost 250 investigations of sexual abuse of women and children (even 10 years old) by the UN military and civilian personnel.[4] Especially in the most-conflictual areas of Congo, the prostitution, rape and pedophilia are the widespread, if not the ‘common affairs’, of the day. The young female children in Congo are called as ‘One-dollar UN Girl’ because they are forced to sell their bodies to the UN personnel in return for money, without which they had no other way of survival.

These cases remind us the contradictory nature of UN peacekeeping operations. The post-Cold War task of peacekeepers has been to re-establish the rule of law, curb direct political violence, promote good governance and reconciliation and help the conflict-torn countries to recover from the trauma of the conflict and human rights violations. However, the Blue Helmets have acted without any consideration on these fundamental principles. In this regard, it seems important to evaluate the gender-dimension of the UN peacekeeping as expressed in many international documents.

‘A Gendered Approach’ to UN Peacekeeping and Peace building

It is obvious that women, men, boys and girls have different needs and difficulties in the times of conflicts, and so they need different approaches to tackle the problems they face with. In that sense, ‘a gendered approach’ to peacekeeping and peace building is of paramount importance to achieve the idealistically set targets of UN peacekeeping operations. However, as the examples of sexual abuse by the peacekeepers themselves clearly demonstrate, the UN operations have been simply ‘gender-blind’.[5] However, the last two decades has shown the increasing involvement of the UN in the gender-sensitive issues during the conflicts.

One of the most important milestones was the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The conference documents explicitly declared that the establishment of long-standing and stable peace is inevitably associated with the equality between men and women. Then, the Beijing Conference strongly underlined the point that “Armed Violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.”[6] Later in 2000, the UN Security Counil adopted the Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security in order to address the hazardous impacts of war-time conditions on women and to emphasize the women's contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace. In the Resolution, the UN Security Council expressed the concern “... that that civilians, particularly women and children, account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict, including as refugees and internally displaced persons, and increasingly are targeted by combatants and armed elements, and recognizing the consequent impact this has on durable peace and reconciliation.” Moreover, the Resolution 1325 stressed on the responsibility of all the parties to the conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict. Apart from these two important documents, the 1998 Rome Statue establishing International Criminal Court recognized in 2000 that rape and other sexual violence, occurring within the context of war, as crimes against humanity.

These documents provide the general framework on which the peacekeeping operations would be based. However, the UN has tried to take more practical measures to address the issue especially due to the gradual intensification of the criticisms against the peacekeepers. Among the others, the Policy Planning Unit of the Department of Peacekeeping issued the Ten Rules-Code of Personal Conduct for Blue Helmets, which explicitly bans any exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex and renders the perpetrators liable to disciplinary actions for serious misconduct.

The Article 4 of the Code specifically deals with the sexual abuse and states that the blue helmets shall not “... indulge in immoral acts of sexual, physical or psychological abuse or exploitation of the local population or United Nations staff, especially women and children”. All the troop-contributing countries recognize these ten codes of conduct as binding.

In addition to the general rules applied to all the peacekeeping operations, there are more specific rules concerning each peace operations of the UN. These country-specific codes of conducts have been designed to address the particular problems experienced during the particular missions of the UN. Among the others, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has its own codes of conduct developed in 2003. The MONUC code of personal conduct strictly prohibits the sexual abuse and exploitation of local people by the peacekeepers.

Concluding Remarks

The changing notion of security has necessitated the novel approach to the UN peacekeeping operations, which has manifested itself in various conflicts since the end of the Cold War. The primary aim has been presented as the protection of fundamental principles of human rights. More particularly some of the international documents have explicitly recognized the linkages between women’s human rights and war-like conditions.

However, practically speaking, the UN peacekeeping operations have created a ‘secure environment’ for the perpetuation of the violations of fundamental rights of women and children. This issue can be evaluated with respect to the words of Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who stated as a response to the recent allegations that the UN cannot punish the peacekeepers for crimes. The only thing the UN can do is to send them back to their countries.

The inability of the UN to put its peacekeepers into the trial is a fundamental question which relates to a systemic discussion of the place of international human rights in a world of still nation states. However, there exists another dimension of the issue. It is the ‘gender-blind’ approach taken in the peace operations. Even though the general or country-specific codes of conducts seem to deal with the gender-dimension of the issue, as the examples have shown, such an approach is limited both in scope and philosophy.

Caglar Dolek, ISRO African Studies
caglar_dolek@yahoo.com
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* This article is taken with permission from the Journal of Turkish Weekly.
About the Author: Caglar Dolek, is a member ofInternational Strategic Research Organization -African Studies, Turkey. He can be reached at caglar_dolek@yahoo.com