Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, Member States accept the UN Organization’s insistence that sexual exploitation and abuse by its personnel is now under control due to increased efforts at prevention and reporting. Code Blue disagrees: sexual offenses continue, with impunity, because of what happens after claims are filed. Every “allegation” triggers actions by the UN that are carried out by unmonitored staff, out of sight of independent observation and evaluation.

Member States must hold the Organization to a reliable, independent system of checks and balances.

Observing, in real time, the internal procedures and practices followed across the UN system after a claim is made would finally allow Member States to watch how the Organization treats claims, accusers, and the accused, and to decide for themselves what reforms are needed.

Below is a timeline of the Code Blue Campaign’s advocacy for a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel appointed by Member States and authorized to monitor and evaluate the UN Organization’s handling of sex offense claims. The Panel would be external, completely separate from any part of the Organization, and would operate for a fixed period of time. When claims of sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment are reported anywhere in the UN system, the Panel would be alerted. Its members would have full access to case information, documents, correspondence, meetings, investigation reports, and interviews, with the ability to observe how the Organization conducts its work in real time. It would report its findings exclusively to Member States.

We believe that the information and recommendations from a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel would finally show Member States that a comprehensive overhaul of the UN’s approach to handling sexual offenses committed by its personnel is vitally needed.

Letter to Ambassadors on CAR External Independent Review

January 22, 2016

In April 2015, with the help of documents leaked by the Code Blue Campaign, news media outlets reported on widespread child sexual abuse committed by peacekeepers serving in MINUSCA, the UN mission in the Central African Republic (CAR). Public outcry led to the creation of an External Independent Review Panel (“CAR panel”), whose final report pointed to the UN’s “gross institutional failure to respond to the allegations in a meaningful way.”

Upon the release of the Panel’s scathing report, Code Blue urged UN Ambassadors to create an “eminently qualified, highly skilled, and knowledgeable oversight board, appointed by and reporting directly to Member States” to examine the UN Organization’s response to sexual exploitation and abuse. Existing outside the purview of the UN Secretary-General, the oversight board would be “entirely external and autonomous,” and would exist for a limited term of two to three years. “Confidence in business-as-usual,” the letter warned, “can no longer be justified to the vulnerable or the victimized.”

For more on the CAR scandal, see our Spotlight page.

Time for Dramatic Changes to End Peacekeeper Sexual Abuse

January 26, 2016

In light of the CAR Panel report, and recognizing the need for external oversight before scandals hit the news, Paula Donovan and Stephen Lewis—Co-Directors of AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign—publicly called on Member States to assume the temporary oversight and management of the UN’s response to sexual exploitation and abuse. They proposed the creation of an external, independent management board to “monitor and supervise every aspect of the UN’s prevention of and response to peacekeeper sexual abuse in real time.” Such a board would “provide hands-on guidance; immediately identify gaps; streamline actions; and implement on-the-spot course corrections.” Member States must assume temporary control of the UN’s response to sex offenses, they warned, “if UN peacekeeping is to survive with its integrity and reputation intact.”

New UN Peacekeeper Sex Abuse Report is Stunning, But for Unexpected Reasons

March 3, 2016

After reading the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on “Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse,” which dodged responsibility for the CAR scandal, Code Blue issued a statement warning that “Member States can no longer depend on the UN bureaucracy to heal its internal crisis” of sex abuse. The Campaign advocated for the creation of a Member State-controlled oversight board to “propose to all Member States a plan to reform, root and branch, the response to and handling of sexual exploitation and abuse.” The statement continued: “Only when a legally sound and functioning system is in place, only when Member States are absolutely certain that the bureaucracy is ready and able to implement their collective will, would control be returned to the UN bureaucracy.”

Another 41 Allegations of Peacekeeper Sex Abuse Undisclosed by the UN

April 13, 2016

The Code Blue Campaign revealed that the UN Organization knew about, and kept secret, more than 40 allegations of sexual violence in the CAR peacekeeping mission MINUSCA. The UN once again grossly mishandled the allegations, retraumatizing victims by subjecting them to “a chaotic grab-bag of bits and pieces of UN activities, slapped together by the MINUSCA mission without adequate headquarters leadership or oversight, thought, planning, protocols, guidelines, or clear channels of communication.” This underscored, yet again, the urgent need for the creation of a temporary, “external, expert oversight panel, chosen from and responsible to the Member States” rather than to the UN Secretariat.

Code Blue's Proposal for a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel

February 23, 2018

As the UN continued to mishandle serious allegations of workplace sexual harassment and abuse and to shield perpetrators of sex crimes from facing criminal justice, Code Blue issued a formal proposal for a Temporary Indepedent Oversight Panel. The Oversight Panel would “​​closely monitor and evaluate, in real time, the UN’s response to individual allegations of sexual offenses, and make expert recommendations on UN policies and procedures.” It would also have the capacity to “intervene immediately when current practices or actions pose or could pose further harm to victims or witnesses.”

For more on the lack of criminal accountability for sex crimes committed by UN civilian personnel, see our Spotlight page.

Proposal for Independent Accountability

April 18, 2018

Speaking to the UK House of Commons Select Committee on International Development during its inquiry on sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector, Paula Donovan warned that the UN Organization “has largely been allowed to self-police given the reluctance of Member States to demand external oversight.” Donovan implored the UK and other Member States to “begin to dismantle impunity for sexual exploitation and abuse” by creating an Oversight Panel, which would finally allow Member States to “carry out their duty to understand, evaluate, analyze, and correct systems now in place.”

UN Reopens Botched UNAIDS Sexual Assault Investigation

April 27, 2018

Upon the UN’s reopening of a botched internal, administrative investigation into sexual abuse allegations at UNAIDS, Code Blue stressed the urgent need for a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel that would “peruse the full details of the final recommendations and ultimate dispositions of cases before they are made formal.” Such oversight, Code Blue argued, is “the only way to ensure full transparency in a system that has shown itself sorely lacking in legitimacy.”

For more on the UNAIDS sexual assault scandal, see our Spotlight page.

Zero Accountability for UNAIDS Sex Abuse Crisis

May 4, 2018

The UN Organization announced that its own Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)—hardly independent from the UN bureaucracy—would lead the reopened investigation into the sexual assault allegations at UNAIDS. As evidence of the UN’s mishandling of the initial investigation mounted, Code Blue argued that OIOS should instead investigate “the evidence of crisis-level sexual harassment and sexual assault, abuse of authority, intimidation, and mismanagement at UNAIDS that came to light when that sexual assault scandal and its cover-up were exposed.” Code Blue urged Member States to create a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel tasked with overseeing every aspect of OIOS’ investigation, with the Panel’s experts reporting “directly, constantly, and only to Member States.”

UK Report Offers No Systemic Solutions to UN Sex Abuse Crisis

July 31, 2018

A report on sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector by the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee lamented the fact that “it is difficult to assess” the extent of misconduct in the UN’s handling of sex abuse allegations as the system is “not laid out clearly enough for us to judge where high standards are being met, and where they are deficient.” In response, Code Blue again advocated for “real-time external oversight to evaluate the status quo and identify problems before they reach crisis proportions.”

Sexual exploitation in the aid sector elicits call for UN reform
(Radio Canada International)

August 1, 2018

Speaking to RCI, Paula Donovan highlighted the urgent need for independent, external oversight of the UN’s response to allegations of sexual offenses. The international community has either “been reluctant or absolutely stubbornly refusing to pay attention” to the crisis, she said, before urging Canada to take a serious leadership role in pushing for a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel.

It's Not Complicated: The UN Must Clarify Immunity

September 26, 2018

In an op-ed published by Inter Press Service (IPS), Paula Donovan highlighted the UN’s continued misuse of immunity—a practice that effectively shields UN personnel accused of sex crimes from facing criminal justice. Donovan argued that Member States must “temporarily impanel impartial experts—not employees—to oversee the UN’s response to claims of sexual exploitation and abuse across all parts of the UN, monitoring every step taken in real time, from receipt of each claim, through fact-finding and investigation, to the final outcome.” It is only through external oversight, she contended, that the extent and consequences of the UN’s misapplication of immunity would be revealed.

For more on the UN’s misuse of immunity, see our Spotlight page.

Pressure grows on UN official accused of encouraging 'harassment and abuse'
(The Guardian)

December 7, 2018

An Independent Expert Panel (IEP) report highlighting rampant sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power at UNAIDS was initially suppressed by UN leadership, and was only released following Code Blue’s public demand. The report excoriated UNAIDS senior leadership and repeatedly called for independent oversight. Speaking to journalists about the IEP’s damning conclusions, Paula Dononvon argued that the report “points to one brutally obvious conclusion: abuse of power reigns when the UN is allowed to police itself. The UN system must be overhauled to put oversight in the hands of authorities who are truly independent.”

For more articles featuring the Code Blue Campaign and its calls for independent oversight, see Code Blue in the News.

The Crisis at UNRWA Cries Out for Independent Oversight

August 1, 2019

In the wake of "credible and corroborated" evidence that the senior management of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) engaged in "sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives," Code Blue again advocated for an Oversight Panel. “The UNRWA case affirms for us the necessity of just such an external solution,” read the statement. “As things now stand, ‘zero tolerance’ within the UN has become a specious concept.”

Another UN Entity, Another Sex Scandal

October 9, 2019

Just two months after the UNRWA scandal broke, an independent staff survey at the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) revealed that more than 640 staff members had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment or abuse, while 950 respondents had experienced or witnessed retaliation for speaking up. Code Blue noted that the “level of abuse revealed by the WFP survey is clearly endemic across all UN entities,” before calling again for a Temporary Independent Oversight Panel.