UNITED NATIONS – The U.N.'s poor handling of child sexual abuse claims against French soldiers has human rights staffers fearing for their jobs as they struggle with how to respond to highly sensitive allegations in the future, according to a letter to the world body's human rights chief obtained by The Associated Press.
In a separate letter to the U.N. secretary-general, a woman who worked directly under the U.N. staffer who was suspended for alerting French authorities is protesting her dismissal last week, a day before she says she was to testify in support of him for an internal U.N. investigation.
A year after the U.N. first heard children as young as 9 describe how they were given cookies or water bottles in exchange for sodomy or oral sex by French soldiers protecting their displaced persons camp in conflict-torn Central African Republic, it seems the only person who has been punished is the staffer who told the French. France has not announced any arrests and this week said it was still investigating.
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