U.N. Official Accuses France of Delays in Child Sexual Abuse Case

U.N. Official Accuses France of Delays in Child Sexual Abuse Case


UNITED NATIONS — The uproar over allegations of child sexual abuse by French soldiers in Central African Republic spread on Friday, as the United Nations top human rights official accused France of delays in investigating its troops, the United States pressed for an inquiry, and the United Nations faced new scrutiny over the accountability of peacekeepers who exploit civilians they are sent to protect.

In his first public remarks since the allegations surfaced that French troops had sexually abused several boys from December 2013 to May 2014, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, sharply questioned why France had not investigated its own soldiers before United Nations staff members began their own investigation.

The United Nations collected testimonies from six boys, some of whom described in detail how they had been sexually abused; others said they witnessed it.


“How is it that nobody knew about these abuses between December and May?” said Mr. al-Hussein, a former United Nations peacekeeper in Bosnia who, in a previous role, had pressed the United Nations to improve how it handles sexual abuse allegations in its peacekeeping missions.

“If you have a fever for five months, you don’t need a doctor to come in at the fifth month to tell you you’re not well,” he added.

The United Nations was not in charge of the troops serving in the Central African Republic at the time. France had deployed soldiers to quell a bitter sectarian conflict in the country, its former colony, long before a United Nations peacekeeping mission was established.

No one has been charged with a crime yet, eight months after the allegations surfaced, and this week the finger-pointing began over who was to blame for the delays.

French officials have said only that most of the accused soldiers have been removed from the Central African Republic operation, but offered no details of when they were repatriated and where they were posted now. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Thursday announced that French judges would formally investigate the allegations.

French authorities had opened a preliminary criminal investigation last July, after a United Nations employee leaked to the French authorities an internal United Nations inquiry into the sexual abuse allegations.

That inquiry, prepared by the United Nations children’s agency and human rights agency, contained the names of the victims, all minors. The United Nations staff member found to have leaked it to the French was suspended, with pay, pending an investigation. The United Nations has said repeatedly that its rules ban the public release of the names of victims and investigators.

This week, the staff member, Anders Kompass, a Swedish national, was reinstated to his post by a United Nations tribunal.

Meanwhile, France has sought to deflect accusations that it is dragging its feet in the investigation, arguing that the United Nations was not fully cooperating.

President François Hollande of France promised to “set an example” with soldiers who were found guilty, and his defense ministry promised to declassify an internal military investigation and make it available to judicial investigators.

A spokesman for the French Army chief of staff, Col. Gilles Jaron, said, “When these events — and all of these events are not proven as of today — were brought to our attention, we acted on that very same day.”

The American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters on Friday that the entire manner in which the “grave and grotesque allegations” had been handled should be investigated by an impartial, independent body, adding that the children’s testimonies should have been looked into more swiftly.

“It’s essential that those countries whose soldiers are alleged to have been involved in crimes of this magnitude act aggressively,” she said. “We, again like everyone, are concerned about the length of time.”

Even though the French said they had immediately sent investigators to Central African Republic upon receiving the testimonies, the initial inquiry apparently did not yield enough information to file criminal charges.

In September, French authorities asked to speak to the United Nations investigator who collected the testimonies, a request that took a month to reach United Nations headquarters through diplomatic channels, according to a United Nations spokesman.

Then the United Nations asked France for a list of questions, which took until February to arrive. Only on March 30 did the United Nations give the French authorities a redacted copy of the initial inquiry, and only on Thursday — a full year after the sexual abuse is said to have taken place — did the French open an investigation.

The episode places Mr. al-Hussein in a peculiar spot. Ten years ago, as the lead author of a critical report on how the United Nations handles sexual abuse allegations against its own peacekeepers, he proposed that defendants be tried in court-martial proceedings in the country where the accusations are made and that they submit DNA samples to help investigators.

He also urged the United Nations to have a role in conducting the full investigation, along with the authorities of the home countries of the peacekeepers. That way, his report said, there could be a second set of eyes to ensure accountability.

None of those reforms were made, after countries that contribute troops to peacekeeping missions objected. Other changes were made, including offering services to victims.The United Nations has limited means to force home countries to punish their soldiers. It can urge them to do so, it can ask for information about their investigations — though sometimes the countries do not respond — and in principle, it can refuse to take forces from those countries.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Friday, Mr. al-Hussein stood by his position that a document containing the names of victims and witnesses should not have been released to an outside party before the United Nations had had a chance to redact names. “No one has a monopoly on outrage,” he said. “We are all outraged.”

In his 45-minute news conference, Mr. al-Hussein repeatedly said that France should have acted sooner to investigate the accusations against its soldiers. “It would be impossible to believe,” he added, “it was only the soldiers with no one knowing.”