By Roy Denish.
More than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers were once implicated in a shocking abuse scandal in Haiti. Now rights groups are demanding that a new deployment be stopped before history repeats itself.
Human rights organizations are demanding that the planned deployment of Sri Lankan soldiers in Haiti be immediately suspended over unresolved allegations linked to an earlier UN mission. Sri Lankan military and police personnel are expected to join the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, but campaigners say the mission cannot proceed without accountability for abuses committed between 2004 and 2007. During that period, Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers serving in Haiti under MINUSTAH became central to a major sexual exploitation and abuse scandal involving vulnerable civilians and minors.
Internal United Nations investigative files from the Office of Internal Oversight Services showed that the systematic abuse was closely connected to the placement of military infrastructure and Haiti’s deep economic desperation. Armed Sri Lankan contingents based at strategic locations, particularly Martissant and near Habitation Leclerc in Port-au-Prince, operated visible checkpoints and roadblocks along important transit routes. Young women and children travelling through the devastated capital to collect water or seek work had little choice but to pass these security points. The severe imbalance in resources shaped each encounter, giving foreign soldiers overwhelming structural power over people living with chronic deprivation.
According to the UN files, coercion frequently took the form of transactional exploitation. Soldiers used their access to essential goods as leverage, approaching people at checkpoints with cookies, snacks, mobile phones or small sums of money. After establishing relationships built on material dependence, personnel persuaded women and minors to enter secluded sections of military camps, parked UN transport trucks or makeshift brothels within the deployment area. Investigators found the abuse had continued so consistently that young Haitian victims had developed a working vocabulary of specific sexual phrases in Sinhala.
The exploitation became especially predatory when directed at starving children who begged and scavenged near military bases to survive. UN investigators said soldiers deliberately targeted minors who approached camp perimeters searching for food. Rather than offering humanitarian assistance, personnel allegedly used peanut butter, juice and cookies to lure children, some only 12 years old, into the barracks. Official files described a highly organized sex ring operating across almost every location where Sri Lankan forces were deployed. One young victim told investigators she had been repeatedly abused by nearly 50 peacekeepers over three years, with her need for food used to secure her compliance.
More than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were implicated in the widespread sexual assaults and exploitation of minors, yet none were prosecuted by the Sri Lankan military. Although 114 personnel, including senior officers, were repatriated after the ring was uncovered in 2007, human rights groups say no one faced a domestic criminal trial or imprisonment. Campaigners argue that the failure to prosecute those implicated created and sustained a culture of systemic impunity.
The renewed opposition has intensified following the removal of independent domestic vetting safeguards. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka recently phased out its independent screening process for UN missions, effectively allowing the military to certify its own personnel. In joint appeals to UN officials and international donors, including the United States and Canada, a coalition of rights organizations called for every planned deployment to the Gang Suppression Force to be frozen. They demanded the restoration of transparent third-party vetting and strict accountability measures, including biometric data collection for all deployed personnel, so that any future abuse can be independently identified, tracked and prosecuted.
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