Sunday 10pm FRONTLINE - PBS documentary series that explores news investigations from award-winning journalism team. UN SEX ABUSE SCANDAL - An investigation of sex abuse by United Nations peacekeepers in the world's conflict zones. The film traces allegations from Bosnia to Congo to the Central African Republic, with firsthand accounts from survivors, witnesses, and officials.
Over the past 15 years, the United Nations (UN) has recorded more than 1,700 allegations of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers in conflict zones around the world — from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kosovo, and from East Timor to Haiti. In UN Sex Abuse Scandal, FRONTLINE investigates how and why the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers has persisted despite the UN’s efforts to stamp it out – and why the UN has a record of only 53 uniformed peacekeepers and one international civilian peacekeeper being sent to prison for sexual offenses.
“Though the UN’s new secretary general has vowed to make combatting sexual abuse and exploitation a top priority, we’ve found that not only is it still happening — but that many victims hadn’t been contacted by the UN, and that criminal accountability for the perpetrators remains elusive,” says correspondent Ramita Navai, an award-winning author and journalist. In UN Sex Abuse Scandal, the film explores the failures and constraints of the UN — which has the authority to fire people, but not prosecute them — and the role of member states in dealing with the problem.