The brutal face of peacekeeping

Peacekeeping is one of the main functions of the United Nations, an intergovernmental organisation that was created to maintain international peace and security and to develop friendly relations among nations. The UN peacekeepers are civilian, military and police personnel drawn from member nations. Their stated mandate is to protect the most vulnerable while providing support to countries transitioning from conflict to peace.

Since peace is not simply the absence of war, and conflict cannot be reduced to its most visible manifestations in the form of physical violence, the transition is difficult to define. Peacekeepers have been deployed to perform a range of tasks. These include monitoring ceasefires, safeguarding the human rights of civilians, disarming ex-combatants, minimising the risk of landmines, promoting the rule of law, and overseeing free and fair elections.

What are the power dynamics between peacekeepers from various cultural backgrounds sent to a conflict zone, and the locals they are supposed to protect? What institutional mechanisms are available to prevent abuse of power? What happens when people in charge of peacekeeping turn into perpetrators of violence? These questions are insightfully answered by jasmine-M Westendorf in her new book  Violating Peace: Sex, Aid and Peacekeeping . The author is a senior lecturer in international relations at La Trobe University, Australia. 

She writes, “Despite over 15 years of policy development designed to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse and hold perpetrators to account, both civilian and uniformed personnel associated with peace operations continue to perpetrate it, and the impacts of such behaviours remain poorly understood.” 

Ms Westendorf rips off the facade that presents the UN as an organisation committed to eliminating sexual violence. Her research makes it clear that the UN, which has formulated Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, reduce inequality, and provide access to justice all over the world, has failed to address the damage caused by its own peacekeepers. Not all peacekeepers engage in such horrifying actions but those who do undermine peacebuilding efforts to assist countries recovering from civil wars.

Violating Peace: Sex, Aid and Peacekeeping

Author: Jasmine-Kim Westendorf

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Pages: 232 

Violating Peace is not easy to read. It contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence, which are utterly disturbing. However, those who aspire to a career in peacekeeping might benefit from a reality check about the ethical considerations of working in a field they might have previously approached with rose-tinted glasses.

Ms Westendorf writes, “Italian peacekeepers allegedly ran child prostitution rings from their barracks in Sarajevo, while Ukrainian peacekeepers supplemented their small income by smuggling alcohol, contraband, and women and setting up a brothel that was largely patronised by other peacekeepers....in Somalia, Belgian soldiers allegedly bought a teenage girl as a birthday present for a paratrooper and forced her to perform a sexualized show and have sex with two soldiers.” 

 Ms Westendorf identifies that sexually violent behaviour is often linked to “the deliberate militarization of masculinity within armies as a training mechanism” and to “the normalization of sexual violence in peacekeepers’ home countries.” She plunges into the murky depths of a system that is terribly flawed. The moral high ground that some countries speak from when they advocate for external intervention in a prolonged armed conflict stands exposed for its shallowness. The UN itself comes across as an organisation whose legitimacy is compromised because it has tried to obscure information about the reporting of sexual violence.

This book also invites readers to consider the question of consent in all its complexity in relation to gender as well as race. By discussing transactional sex, wherein food or money are offered in exchange for sex to people facing economic deprivation, it shows how blurred the lines are when it is a question of life and death. Does it make sense to ask if the consent was active, implied or enthusiastic?  If someone is paid for a service, does that justify their humiliation?  

The book explores these questions in depth. It also shatters the perception that boys and men do not get raped.