The Subcommittee will come to order.

I am pleased today to welcome you to the first meeting of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations in the 109^th Congress.  This new subcommittee brings together three previously separate jurisdictions –Africa, the promotion of human rights around the world, and authorization of U.S. funding of the State Department and other international organizations – into one “super” subcommittee.  We have before us a powerful tool to promote basic human rights, defend oppressed people, and ensure that America’s foreign aid programs truly help create jobs for the poor, promote better health for those suffering from diseases like AIDS, malaria, TB and malnutrition, and secure protections for women and children at risk of abuse or exploitation.  I am also pleased that my friend and colleague from New Jersey, Rep. Don Payne, is serving as Ranking Member.

Today, we are meeting to examine credible evidence of gross sexual misconduct and exploitation of refugees and vulnerable people by UN peacekeepers and civilian personnel assigned to the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Human rights groups and the UN’s own internal investigations have uncovered over 150 allegations against Mission personnel.  These allegations typically involve peacekeepers’ sexual contact with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.  According to the UN, these contacts occurred with sickening frequency, and many involved girls under the age of 18, with some as young as 11-14.  Even more troubling are allegations of rape, forced prostitution, and demands of sex for jobs by UN civilian personnel.  However, to date, there has not been one successful prosecution of UN civilian or military personnel, either in the Congo or elsewhere. 

Some in our audience might be thinking that apart from the more serious allegations of rape and other sexual abuse, prostitution is the world’s oldest profession and that it is unrealistic to ask soldiers away from their families to abstain from sex.  This attitude of “boys will be boys” is indeed common, but must be absolutely repudiated.  In fact, the UN reported that it encountered significant and widespread resistance to its investigation, and that numerous UN personnel were unwilling to identify perpetrators.

The reality, however, is that this state of affairs is not just a private matter involving only the personal moral choices of the peacekeepers.  Hundreds of vulnerable women and children are being re-victimized; the reputation of the United Nations is being badly damaged; and lack of internal discipline is compromising security and effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations.  From any perspective, this situation is deplorable.

Let me expand on a few of these points.  First, United Nations forces conducting operations under United Nations command and control are tasked with upholding international humanitarian law and have a particular duty to protect women and children from sexual assault or exploitation.  Peacekeepers have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable members of Congolese society.  When the peacekeepers become the exploiters, something is dreadfully wrong.

Second, the civilian population is especially vulnerable.  There are frequent outbreaks of armed violence in the eastern half of the Congo, especially in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, as the country emerges from its second war in the last ten years.  The civilian population in these areas has experienced systematic acts of rape, torture, murder, and other abuse.  Many of the Congolese women and girls in the camps which the peacekeepers are protecting have been orphaned and/or are victims of rape which occurred during the conflicts.  Investigators found that they have experienced significant trauma which continues to affect them today.

Poverty and hunger are also significant factors contributing to the abuse.  Children driven by hunger approach the peacekeepers seeking food or the smallest sums of money.  Many families are cut off from their farmlands because of fear of attacks from militia, and few alternate employment options exist.  According to the UN’s own investigation, food supplies in some camps are reportedly inadequate.

Third, the continued toleration of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN leaders is severely damaging the reputation and the effectiveness of the organization.  All troop-contributing nations recognize the Code of Personal Conduct for Blue Helmets as binding.  This Code explicitly bans any exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex, and renders the perpetrators liable to disciplinary action for serious misconduct.  In fact, the UN has promulgated at least five UN codes of conduct prohibiting sexual activity with children (persons under 18 years of age) in the Congo, and yet the practice continues unabated. 

This activity is prohibited under rule four of the Code of Conduct for Blue Helmets, the MONUC code of conduct, the Secretary-General’s bulletin on special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of 2003 (ST/SGB/2003/13), section seven of the Secretary-General’s bulletin on observance by United Nations forces of international humanitarian law of 1999 (ST/SGB/1999/13), and new “non-fraternisation” regulations promulgated by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a letter to the UN Security Council on February 9^th.  That the abuse continues and is characterized by internal UN reports as “significant, widespread and on-going” appears to indicate there is rather a state of “zero-compliance with zero-tolerance” throughout the mission.

In the words of Dr. Sarah Mendelson, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who testified in a joint issue forum last fall before the House Armed Services Committee and the Helsinki Commission, which I chair, “Military misconduct is a threat to any mission. When that misconduct involves human rights abuses, it affects the credibility and reputation of peacekeepers and can enrage local populations. When those implicated are also responsible for force protection, they can compromise their main military mission….Those peacekeepers who serve with honor are being tainted by the minority who purchase sex with these women and girls and by the even smaller minority who actively engage in the grave human rights abuse of trafficking.”

The UN has struggled with similar allegations regarding peacekeeper misconduct and sexual exploitation in the past ten years in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, as well as on the European continent in Kosovo and Bosnia.  Some of the underlying issues are complex, such as how to ensure perpetrators are held accountable when no effective UN mechanism exists, and Member states are unwilling to prosecute.  Yet other simple fixes also exist, such as the creation of an offender database, holding commanders accountable for the conduct of their troops, and banning nations from peacekeeping missions which refuse to take disciplinary action.  The seeming reluctance of the UN to act on some of these seemingly obvious solutions raises questions about the willingness of leadership to undertake reform, and raises questions about the ability of the UN to police itself.

Furthermore, the United States Congress has a fiduciary obligation to do so.  The United States is the world’s largest donor to the peacekeeping mission in the Congo, and has contributed three-quarters of a billion dollars since 2000.  This year alone, the U.S. is expected to spend $249 million there.  The U.S. also contributes over a quarter of the entire peacekeeping budget of the United Nations annually.  And that’s not counting airlift and other logistical donations that cost U.S. taxpayers not millions, but billions of dollars.  The Administration has asked the Congress for an additional $780 million for peacekeeping operations in the supplemental budget request.     

The purpose of this hearing today is to probe for answers and immediate solutions.  How can this egregious practice be stopped and prevented from occurring again?  What strategies should the U.S. government and Congress pursue to ensure accountability while deterring new abuses?

In this regard, I have introduced legislation, The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, HR 972, which contains several provisions specifically targeted at preventing trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, and abuse by military personnel and in peacekeeping operations.  HR 972 would require the State Department to certify to Congress, before it contributes U.S. logistical or personnel support to a peacekeeping mission, that the international organization has taken appropriate measures to prevent the organization’s employees, contractors, and peacekeeping forces from engaging in trafficking in persons or committing acts of illegal sexual exploitation.  The provision builds on two prior laws I have authored to combat trafficking in persons and reduce sexual exploitation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003.

Other measures in this bill to combat sexual exploitation and trafficking in persons by military and peacekeepers are:

• Amending the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice to prohibit the use or facilitation of persons trafficked for sex or labor;
• Establishing a Director of Anti-Trafficking Policies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense;
• Reporting of steps taken by the UN, OSCE, NATO and other international organizations to eliminate involvement of its personnel in trafficking;
• Requiring certification that safeguards are in place to prevent military and civilian personnel from trafficking or committing acts of sexual exploitation before a U.S. contribution to a peacekeeping mission is made.

We are pleased that the United Nations has made available Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Dr. Jane Holl Lute, to brief us today.  We welcome her clear and unambiguous statement published in a New York Post op-ed last week that “the United Nations will hold accountable those throughout the chain of command who fail to act decisively in enforcing the “zero tolerance” standard,” and that it is working with the governments of troop-contributing countries to ensure effective follow up in all disciplinary cases.  Our Administration witness today is the Honorable Kim R. Holmes, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.  Our private panel will include the Honorable Princeton N. Lyman, Ralphe Bunche Senior Fellow in Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Dr. Nile Gardiner, Fellow in Anglo-American Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation; and Anneke Van Woudenberg, Senior Researcher on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch.

We hope that this proceeding, and the hearing that is to follow, will serve as a useful tool for all of us to spur needed change, not only in the Congo, but in the standard operating practices of UN peacekeeping around the world.