FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2022: The annual UN account of sexual offenses committed by its own personnel reveals that the “New Approach” adopted five years ago by Secretary-General António Guterres has failed.

The Report of the Secretary-General on Special Measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, released on March 16th, uses the UN’s own statistics to tell the story of a sexual abuse crisis that isn’t getting any better. 

To cite just one example, the UN received 194 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by its personnel in 2021, a 21 percent increase over the 160 allegations recorded in 2020. A complete rundown of the dire statistics is contained in the new report, which can be found here.

Mr. Guterres appears to blame the failure of the New Approach—the set of policies he adopted in 2017 to eradicate sexual offenses by UN personnel—on his “Special Coordinator on improving the United Nations response to sexual exploitation and abuse.” The holder of the job is Jane Holl Lute, a part-time senior UN official who lives and works in Washington D.C. (and also spends time on several corporate boards, including as a Non-Executive Director of Shell Oil). 

On the report’s final page, Mr. Guterres declares that he will now appoint a full-time, dedicated Under-Secretary-General to carry out the Special Coordinator role. Having recognized, two months into his second term, that the pernicious crisis he once placed at the top of his reform agenda needs “constant high-level vigilance combined with the ability to initiate timely action,” the Secretary-General now intends to adopt “a more aggressive approach.” Apparently in contrast with the aloof and seldom-present Ms. Lute, his new Special Coordinator will “ensure dedicated support to the United Nations system-wide.”

We agree that a full-time, dedicated Special Coordinator will be necessary to end the ongoing crisis of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by UN personnel. But coordinating the UN’s antiquated, entrenched, and fundamentally flawed policies and procedures is not the initial step. First, the Secretary-General must reform a system that has victimized thousands over many decades. To succeed, he and his new Special Coordinator will need a new New Approach.

As we have argued over and over since Mr. Guterres became Secretary-General, real change requires radical reform. But no “game-changing solution” to the institution’s sex abuse problem has ever been hatched from within the UN. Any successful new Special Coordinator will need to muster the courage to listen to astute observers and constructive critics who hail from outside. The Code Blue Campaign remains ready, willing, and able to bring new ideas to a decades-old crisis before it wrecks the lives of more women and children and further corrodes the public’s faith and trust in the United Nations.

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Peter Duffy
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Tel: +1-212-729-5084

(UN Photo / Manuel Elías)