In 2004, several allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers led then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask His Royal Highness Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, permanent representative of Jordan and a former civilian peacekeeper, to prepare a report that would detail the extent of these incidences in U.N. peacekeeping missions.
This was not the first such report, however. As early as August 1996, a UNICEF report on the impact of conflict on children noted that in six out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children during times of war, the entry of peacekeeping troops into these countries accompanied a “rapid rise in child prostitution.”
The Zeid report, which was released nearly a decade after the UNICEF study, detailed the necessary steps to eradicate sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeeping personnel. The establishment of a Conduct and Discipline Unit at the U.N. headquarters; the adoption of a three-pronged strategy involving prevention, enforcement and remedial action; and the overhaul of the global body’s administrative justice system were the recommendations that the report outlined — and the United Nations subsequently implemented.