UN in Haiti
 

Yay UN, bring us peace! Or child prostitution, you know, whatever. On one hand I'm glad to see that it isnt' just the US doing shit like this (by which i mean, that we're not freakish abberrations, just people), but on the other hand I'm really really depressed. I don't really even know what to say. Then there's that quote from the Un general "My operating presumption is that this is either a problem or a potential problem in every single one of our missions." Seriously, you're the UN, it should be a non-issue.

Damn, this is terrible! Absolutely horrible! How do they recruit people into the UN army anyway? what are their ranks composed of?

This kind of thing happens in almost every military occupation. The soldiers are far from home, doing a stressful job, and haven't seen their family and loved ones for a long time. As a result, a lot of them take that tension out sexually. In Vietnam,the soldiers used brothels. When there are no brothels available, things get even uglier.

I'm not condoning this, but it's not exactly shocking. Sickening, that it should come from U.N. peacekeepers, but not shocking.

?

I should think treating child-rape as a non-issue would be exactly the opposite of what we would want from military leadership. I mean, isn't being concerned about the potential for abuse of civilian populations by armed forces exactly what people conducting such an operation are supposed to do?

This is exactly the kind of thing that I never really expect to hear about from the UN. Aren't they supposed to be supressing this kind of thing? And I find it to be very depressing that they were doing this to the people that they were supposed to be protecting.

I know that it's probably a very small percentage of the soldiers that do this sort of thing, but come on. Hopefully the UN will cope with this somehow and get their act together. It's embarassing to watch.

Erm--I don't mean to put words in other people's mouths (or keyboards? I dunno), but I think this might be the fault of ambiguous language. As I read it, Mannix's use of the term "non-issue" could mean "yeah, the UN shouldn't worry about it", but it seems more likely that it would mean "the UN shouldn't have to worry about this shit in the first place, 'cos they're the UN and when they're deployed in another country they're supposed to be the good guys, which means not frequenting child prostitutes."

Just saying, it could be construed either way, but seems to make more sense the other way, as I read it. Really, tho', it's up to Mannix to make that clearer.

(I lurk in here far, far more often than I ever dare post. I'm not much good at arguing about big, serious issues, but I know from my English grammar and syntax ^_^ .)

Satan's Onion hit the nail on the head. Sorry it wasn't a bit clearer, I had some vommit in my mouth while I was writing it.

And the UN soldiers aren't just frequenting child prostitutes, they're trafficking in them. That means they're going out and finding the kids and selling them. The UN, in many of their opperations, are selling people into slavery. This is so utterly contrary to the purpose of the UN as to blow my mind. I realize they're far from home, blah blah blah, but seriously, that's no excuse. Lots and lots of soldiers don't rape and pillage because they're decent human beings. Being in the military is just a convenient excuse for these reprobates.

That quote from the general seemed pretty blase' to me. You'd think that the fact that there are UN Slavers would have him a little more pissed off than that.

the problem is that these are not just "UN troops" they are regular people with militar trianing and guns on a war scenario...

I would take a shot in the dark here and say that things like this have always happen in pretty much all similar situations of military action across the globe, only now, we know about it... media evolution, if you may...

So yeah... the fact that these people hold the UN flag makes it worst... just as much as it makes me wonder about just what kind of people represents the military power of the UN... and the type of people who wants to represent the UN...

But it isn't a war scenario, it's an international peacekeeping mission. They're there to prevent a war, not fight one. And just because it's happened before doesn't make it ok. That's part of the whole mission of the UN, to hold the world to a higher standard. You can't very well be taken seriously as an international organization, let alone a humanitarian/peace organization, when your people on the ground are slave traders.

Also, on a side note, if this had been the American military in Iraq I can't help but imagine the uproar would be far greater.

Well we are talking about the same entity that let China on the human rights commision (or whatever its called, I'm not up to speed on UN buracratic nomencluture, I also can't spell that word). Also this is far the first time something like this has happened. Not in general, but with the UN (any of you remember the UN 'food for sex' scandle? Perhaps not, as it was quickly covered over by most media outlets).