New report on U.N. Peacekeepers in Haiti Fathering Hundreds of Children

A new report confirms what many Haitians have reported and accused the UN mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, for a decade: that along with its many other crimes against Haitians, UN soldiers committed sexual abuse. The academic study, which interviewed 2,500 Haitians about their experiences of local women and girls living in communities that hosted alleged peace support operations, heard 265 stories that featured “children fathered by UN personnel. That 10% of those interviewed mentioned such children highlights how common such stories really are.”

The findings from the interviews reveal that girls as young as 11 were sexually abused and impregnated by peacekeepers and then, as one man put it, “left in misery” to raise their children alone, often because the fathers are repatriated once the pregnancy becomes known. “

The UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) – the longest running mission by the organisation in the country (2004-2017) – was originally mandated to assist local Haitian institutions in a context of political instability and organised crime. Its mandate was then extended due to natural disasters, most notably an earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, both of which added to the volatility of the political situation in the country. After 13 years of operation, MINUSTAH closed in October 2017, transitioning to the smaller UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH).

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Read about the study in The Conversation.

Link to the full report authored by Sabine Lee, Professor in Modern History, University of Birmingham and Susan Bartels, Clinician-Scientist, Queen’s University, Ontario.

More on Canada’s role in Haiti and why Haitians are protesting outside of the Embassy in Port au Prince.