By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--July 30, 2019
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“In addition to the prison term, the court ordered Dalglish to pay his victims the equivalent of US$5,000 each. “Nepalese police arrested him in the early hours of April 8 last year in a raid on the mountain home he had built in the village of Kartike, east of the capital of Kathmandu. Police alleged he had raped two Nepalese boys aged 11 and 14, who were with him at the time. “Pushkar Karki, chief of the Central Investigation Bureau, accused Dalglish of luring children from poor families with promises of education, jobs and trips, then sexually abusing them. Karki said other foreign men in Nepal had also been arrested on suspicion of pedophilia. “Dalglish, who co-founded a Canadian charity called Street Kids International in the late 1980s, had spent years doing humanitarian work in Nepal. He has also worked for several humanitarian agencies, including UN Habitat in Afghanistan and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response in Liberia. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in late 2016.”
“The WHO said it received no complaints about his behaviour while he worked there. UN-Habitat said that “based on initial consultations” it had “found that there were no reports or allegations on any misconduct during his tenure with UN-Habitat.” The ILO said it “had no association with Mr. Dalglish since the conclusion of his engagement in 2005. In view of the allegations made against him, the ILO is undertaking its own examination of these matters.”
“Dalglish’s lawyers see it differently. They have raised a host of objections, saying the police investigation and trial was “like watching a wrongful conviction unfold in real time.” At the very least, they said, there was reasonable doubt as to their client’s guilt. (Globe and Mail) “According to his lawyers, the case appears to have originated with rumours at a school in Thailand where Dalglish had been a board member. They insist a probe found no evidence of misconduct but a complaint to the RCMP appears to have led to an Interpol “red flag,” prompting Nepalese police to open their own investigation.
“You have to remember that UN officials have immunity from prosecution. So quite often, crimes are committed by UN officials because they know they can easily get away with them,” said Rasna Warah, a Kenyan columnist and author of Unsilenced: Unmasking the United Nations’ Culture of Cover-ups, Corruption and Impunity. (Globe and Mail) “UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said “we must end impunity for those guilty of sexual exploitation and abuse.” “But large organizations must do more, including the installation of software to help spot pedophiles, said Lori Handrahan, author of Epidemic: America’s Trade in Child Rape. “Because, experts say, history shows that those who hurt children are also often those who serve them.”It’s high time for society to drain the swamp that protects UN predators rather than the children they abuse. Time for society to hold ‘leaders’ like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who seem to look the other way while innocent young children are being abused, accountable.
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