This article contains disturbing content and addresses an issue that desperately needs to be brought to light.
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Every single year, pedophilia, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking rates increase. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million human trafficking victims worldwide and 4.5 million people trapped in forced sex trafficking around the globe. At least 100,000 children are prostituted annually in the U.S., adding to the $9.8 billion U.S. sex trafficking industry.
It’s not just pimps and escaped convicts involved. It’s the people we’re expected to respect or “look up to” the most: the politicians, the elite, the wealthy businessmen, your neighbours, and oftentimes the people that you’d least expect.
In this particularly devastating case, it’s the people we’re supposed to trust to help others: the United Nations’ peacekeepers. As it turns out, these people are anything but “peace keepers.” Instead, they’re the ones wreaking havoc in these villages and causing children to have nightmares for the rest of their lives.
An Associated Press investigation into the United Nations (UN) has revealed that over the past 12 years, there have been approximately 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers and other employees around the world. Over 300 of those cases involved children; however, very few perpetrators have actually been arrested and held accountable for their crimes.
The Child Sex Ring Run by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti
Many of the children living in poverty in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, are left to fend for themselves, scavenging for food and struggling with hunger on a daily basis. Their lives drastically changed when the UN peacekeepers moved to their village, as they were offered snacks and cookies.
However, this food came with a heavy price no one should ever have to pay. In exchange for food, the UN peacekeepers demanded sex from children as young as 12. In regards to the child sex ring run by UN peacekeepers in Haiti, nine children were being passed around from 2004 to 2007.
“I did not even have breasts,” said a girl, known as “V01” (Victim No. 1). Vo1 was allegedly forced to have sex with approximately 50 peacekeepers over a period of three years, between the ages of 12 and 15. One of the perpetrators was a “Commandant” who she said gave her 75 cents in exchange for sex. Vo1 explained that she would often sleep in UN trucks on the base.
A young boy, Vo9, was 15 when he was first sexually abused by a UN peacekeeper. Over the next three years, he was allegedly forced to have sex with over 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers, on average four times per day.
There are hundreds of other cases like these, yet very few of the perpetrators have been held accountable for their actions. From a legal perspective, the UN has no jurisdiction over peacekeepers so the organization can’t exactly put them on trial. In addition, the names of the peacekeepers who were found guilty have been kept confidential, meaning it’s impossible to figure out who’s involved.
The UN actually found out about what was going on and the only action the organization took was to send home 114 of the peacekeepers. Of the 114 UN peacekeepers involved, no one was imprisoned. Though this put an end to that specific sex ring, the sexual abuse and exploitation in Haiti by UN peacekeepers didn’t stop there.
In addition, when the sex ring was being investigated, a team of Sri Lankan officials traveled to Haiti for two weeks to further investigate the allegations. They only communicated with 25 soldiers out of more than 900 in the country and their findings indicated that only two corporals and one private were involved with having sex with two “young” victims. This is obviously a vast understatement of the amount of Sri Lankan peacekeepers involved and speaks to the level of corruption that exists within the political system.
After considerable evasion, the Sri Lankan government came forward stating that it had only further investigated 18 soldiers and that “the U.N. Secretariat has acknowledged in writing, action taken by the Government, and informed that the Secretariat, as of 29 September 2014, considers the matter closed.”
As of last year, some of the peacekeepers involved in the ring were still in the Sri Lankan military and the UN continues to send Sri Lankan peacekeepers to Haiti.
To be clear, it wasn’t just UN peacekeepers from Sri Lanka involved in the sexual abuse and exploitation of Haitians. Alleged abusers were from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay, and Sri Lanka, according to UN data and interviews.
You can watch the Associated Press’ video regarding the sex ring and abuse in Haiti below:
More Cases of Sexual Abuse by UN Peacekeepers
In March, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared the organization would be implementing new and improved measures to mitigate sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel.
“Let us declare in one voice: We will not tolerate anyone committing or condoning sexual exploitation and abuse. We will not let anyone cover up these crimes with the U.N. flag,” Guterres stated.
Though his sentiments seem sincere, he also sounds sort of like a broken record that’s continuously regurgitating the same message. If his statement has a familiar ring to it, it’s because it closely resembles statements made in a report the UN commissioned over a decade ago promising to abolish any and all sexual abuse. Yet somehow the organization still struggles with this reoccurring issue.
Officials have known that Haitian children were being abused by UN peacekeepers, and no one has done anything about it. It’s not that none of these children are coming forward, it’s that no one has bothered to hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions, including the UN.
In one case, an 11-year-old boy was gang-raped by a group of Uruguayan UN peacekeepers, who actually filmed their actions on a cell phone. The video ended up going viral, and despite this important piece of evidence, none of the perpetrators went to trial in Haiti and only four of the five were convicted of “private violence” in Uruguay, a far lesser charge than they deserved. Officials spun the video as “a prank gone wrong,” when in reality it was clearly rape.
It’s not only in Haiti, either; UN peacekeepers and other employees have been sexually abusing and exploiting children all over the world. Keep in mind that out of the 2,000 cases reported, only 150 of those were actually in Haiti.
There was another pedophile ring in the Democratic Republic of Congo that the UN was involved in — UN police officers in Bosnia paid for prostitutes and were caught trafficking young women from Eastern Europe — and the UN was involved with child sexual abuse and rape in the Central African Republic as well.
Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support Tony Banbury addressed the allegations in the Central African Republic last year in the following video. Banbury is clearly overcome with emotions as he stops to cry when discussing these terrifying abuse allegations. Though his speech is moving, his promise that the “United Nations is doing everything we possibly can to assist the victims and bring accountability and justice for them, and hopefully to prevent any such cases from reoccurring,” seems less sincere since this issue is still ongoing.
Some question whether or not the United Nations does more harm than good. Although the UN has clearly provided immense aid all over the world, the organization is also responsible for some of the corruption that exists in the places it provides aid to. Even the origin of the UN is questionable, as the global elite helped create it, including the Rothschild’s and Rockefeller’s families. You can read more about the UN and who is in control of it in our CE article here:
To be clear, it’s not just children who have fallen victim to the hands of UN peacekeepers, either. Many adult Haitian women have come forward saying that they were raped by peacekeepers too.
Haitian lawyer Mario Joseph has been trying to obtain justice for these women and children, fighting for them to get compensated for numerous reasons. Some of the victims were allegedly exposed to a deadly cholera strain from being sexually abused, as the specific strain was linked to Nepalese peacekeepers who killed approximately 10,000 people. Joseph is also trying to get compensation for the Haitian women who were raped by peacekeepers and were then left pregnant.
“Imagine if the U.N. was going to the United States and raping children and bringing cholera,” Joseph explained in Port-au-Prince. “Human rights aren’t just for rich white people.”
His last point is one that society desperately needs to be reminded of: All people are entitled to basic human rights, not just the ruling elite. Politicians, corporate leaders, and the elite get off scot-free all the time, despite the havoc they’ve wreaked in other people’s lives. They’re often seen as being above the law and above other people, which should not be the case for anyone, regardless of social status.
Where do lawmakers and the government come into all of this? Perhaps if the government allocated more resources toward finding and punishing perpetrators and preventing these sex rings from existing in the first place, sexual abuse and pedophilia wouldn’t be such a large-scale issue. However, the sad reality is, the government and the forces that control it are often a contributing part of the problem.
Government and Elite Linked to Pedophilia and Sex Rings
Sexual violence and war go hand-in-hand. This has been a long-standing issue, and not just during World War 1 and World War 2, but during all times of conflict. For example, approximately 100 girls in the Central African Republic were sexually assaulted by international peacekeepers, not just UN ones, and three of them were “tied up, undressed, and forced to have sex with a dog” by a French military commander in 2014.
There has also been a lot of speculation lately on child sex rings being used by the U.S. government as well. You may be familiar with the PizzaGate scandal, which allegedly unearthed a very high-level elitist global pedophile ring the U.S. government was involved in.
It emerged when Wikileaks released tens of thousands of emails from the former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton, Jon Podesta, who also served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. It’s because of these emails that many claimed Jon Podesta was a part of these child trafficking rings as well.
Below is a video of award winning American journalist Ben Swann explaining the Pizzagate controversy in detail:
This isn’t the first time people were concerned over sexual abuse by government officials. Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent and head of their L.A. office, worked to uncover years’ worth of information on high-level pedophilia, sexual abuse, and satanic rituals performed by the elite. You can read more about that in our CE article here.
Former U.S. representative Cynthia McKinney also knew about the government’s relationship to human trafficking, and she actually addressed it in 2005. She grilled Donald Rumsfeld on military contractor DynCorp’s child trafficking business of selling women and children (source).
Another individual involved in high-level trafficking was Jeffrey E. Epstein, who in 2009 pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution from girls as young as fourteen. He served just over a year in jail and became a registered high-risk sex offender. He was close to Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and many other elitists.
According to former U.S. State Department official Steve Pieczenik, the Clintons and many more “have been a major part and participant of what’s called the Lolita Express, which is a plane owned by Mr. Jeff Epstein, a wealthy multi-millionaire who flies down to the Bahamas and allows Bill and Hillary Clinton to engage in sex with minors — that is called Pedophilia” (source).
Numerous victims involved in elite sex rings and occult sex rituals have come forward, exposing high-level corruption in regards to human sex trafficking and pedophilia. One of the more recent victims to come forward was a woman named Kendall who was sold at birth into a powerful, high-level international sex ring. You can read more about her story in our CE article here.
How Do We Deal With All of This?
The sad truth is that this article represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to high level pedophilia and sexual abuse. There’s so much more information on this topic out there, and keep in mind that whatever research you can find is only what’s been reported on; there are so many more victims that don’t come forward. I encourage you to read the full article on the United Nations peacekeepers’ involvement in child sex rings and sexual abuse by the Associated Press here.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the darkness in the world, especially when it comes to people abusing their power and preying on the innocent and the vulnerable. Society tends to take polar opposites on this issue: We either attempt to hide these actions and wrongly blame the victims, or we demonize and ostracize the perpetrators.
We tend to dehumanize pedophiles, child molesters, rapists, and abusers, demanding punishment for their crimes and responding to their actions with hate and anger. However, if we fail to recognize the humanity in them, how will we ever learn why these violent acts occurred in the first place?
Have you ever made a mistake that forced you to really question your humanity? In reality, our mistakes don’t dehumanize us; rather, they’re part of what makes us human in the first place. So whether you like it or not, people who engage in violent sexual acts are just as “human” as you are. Yet so many people respond to these acts with that same hatred and anger that likely caused the perpetrator to be so violent in the first place.
We shouldn’t be encouraging victims to hate their perpetrators, nor should we be judging or expressing hatred toward those who engage in sex rings, rape, etc. By choosing hate, we end up bottling up anger and resentment, which ultimately hurts no one but ourselves. If we choose to feel all of our emotions, let them pass through us, and then choose forgiveness instead, we can learn to better cope with the more difficult events in our lives. Even if you feel the perpetrator doesn’t deserve forgiveness, I’m sure you can agree that the victim deserves freedom.
Choosing forgiveness doesn’t have to mean compliance, either. We can still change this reality without attaching ourselves to our emotions. By shifting our consciousness and educating others, we can hopefully put an end to these violent acts.
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