Activist groups say sexual harrassment at UN is unacceptable

UN JUSTICE,  a non-profit independent international committee for the safeguarding of individual rights in the United Nations system and other women’s activist groups issued a statement calling on the United Nations to reexamine is staff policies in regards to sexual harassment and exploitation. The group says a senior human resources official may face criminal prosecution and a civil law suit.
UNJustice says the  “disturbing” documented allegations of abuses suffered by an Italian intern at the hands of officials of the UN Secretariat, UN-WFP and World Health Organization were ignored or “bagged” to prevent any public embarrassment.  These allegations are contained in a criminal complaint made on 25 March 2008 to the Office of the Attorney-General of Italy against a senior UN-OHRM (Office of Human Resources Management) official.

In particular,  UNJustice is seriously worried that the UN-OHRM’s deliberate actions may represent an attempt to cover-up the allegations of specific illicit behavior by UN personnel and to uphold, with all means at its disposal, the written formal request made by a UN-OHRM Director to the intern “to refrain from communicating about this matter with any third party”.

The group and other women activist organizations including Equality Now are deeply concerned that the complaint to the Office of the Attorney-General of Italy also contains evidence of a request made by a UN-WFP official to the intern for a bag as payment for the minutes of a UN-DPI meeting on the Oil for Food Programme scandal, “material of a masochistic and degrading sexual nature, reference to false allegations of harassment by a WHO official and to other irregularities by the UN-Department of Safety and Security.”

The UN Legal Counsel, in a 18 June 2008 memorandum addressed to the Government of Italy,  “respectfully request(ed) the Government of Italy …take all necessary steps to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities of the United Nations and its officials, in particular, the immunity from legal process…”, and stated that “Under Article VIII, Section 29 (b) of the General Convention…(the intern) must be provided with an appropriate mode of settlement” of this matter.

No matter which way the cases go, they mishandle it,” says George G. Irving, a former U.N. attorney who now represents clients on both sides of such cases.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the system is troubled. “I fully share your concerns regarding sexual harassment and sex discrimination,” he wrote in February to Equality Now, a women’s rights group that had complained to him. “This scourge remains a high priority issue for me.”

On July 1, the U.N. plans to make changes to its internal justice system for handling all employee disputes, including harassment complaints.

Activist groups are urging the UN Secretariat, UN-WFP and WHO authorities concerned to comply sincerely with their strict legal obligations and to act as is required to give effect to the relevant determination contained in the memorandum addressed by the UN Legal Counsel to the Government of Italy.