U.N. chief condemns ‘appalling’ child sex abuse allegations
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon addresses the participants at the start of the U.N. World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, northeastern Japan, Saturday, March 14, 2015. The president of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, appealed to a U.N. disaster conference Saturday for help as a powerful cyclone swept across his archipelago, driving painfully home the rising risks from extreme weather and climate change.
UNITED NATIONS » The United Nations chief condemned "appalling allegations" of child sexual abuse by French soldiers in Central African Republic while meeting Friday with worried countries that included two of the world body’s top funders.
The ambassador for the United States, by far the U.N.’s top contributing country, welcomed a new external review into how the allegations were handled.
Confidential documents have shown that the U.N.’s top human rights officials did not follow up for more than half a year on allegations collected by their own staffers, while French authorities pressed for more information. France opened a formal judicial inquiry just last month.
Ban Ki-moon met Friday with Australia, Japan, Norway and Guatemala, who did not comment shortly afterward. Japan is the U.N.’s second-largest funder, contributing 10 percent of the world body’s regular budget. Australia also falls in the top dozen contributors.
The United States, which did not attend, pays 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power in a statement Friday said the external review into the child sexual abuse allegations is a chance "to learn what went wrong at every point in this process." The foreign minister of Canada, another top contributor, issued a statement Thursday expressing outrage over the allegations.
Few details have been announced about the external review, which will address both the specific allegations and wider issues related to how the U.N. responds to such sensitive claims. Ban’s spokesman has said a summary of the findings will be made public.
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A person familiar with Friday’s meeting said key details like who would lead the review and how long it would take still had not been decided. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private, said many more countries than the four member states that attended have concerns.
Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told The Associated Press that Ban told the diplomats that "our central concern must be to protect the rights and well-being of victims of these abuses and to ensure that the perpetrators are held to account."
