UN whistleblower who exposed sexual abuse by peacekeepers is exonerated
Anders Kompass ‘relieved but sad’ after being cleared of wrongdoing for revealing abuse in Central African Republic
Anders Kompass was suspended by the UN for passing documents to the French authorities after becoming frustrated at the UN’s lack of action in investigating abuse by peacekeepers. Photograph: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images
Anders Kompass was suspended by the UN for passing documents to the French authorities after becoming frustrated at the UN’s lack of action in investigating abuse by peacekeepers. Photograph: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images
Sandra Laville-Monday 18 January 2016
The UN whistleblower who exposed the sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers in Central African Republic has been completely exonerated after an internal investigation.
Anders Kompass, the director of field operations for the office of the high commissioner for human rights in Geneva, was suspended and faced dismissal after he passed confidential documents detailing the abuse of children by French troops in CAR to the authorities in Paris because of the UN’s failure to stop the exploitation.
The scandal was first reported by the Guardian in April last year, with the child sex allegations and the treatment of Kompass gaining worldwide attention. The UN repeatedly condemned his actions, insisting that he had breached protocols by sharing a secret internal document.
For nine months he was under a disciplinary investigation but a few days ago Kompass was informed in a letter that the internal investigation, run by the Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS), had cleared him of all charges.
His exoneration comes just weeks after an independent panel report – set up by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, into the child sex scandal in CAR – ruled Kompass had done nothing wrong in passing the internal document, which contained interviews with victims and descriptions of the perpetrators, to the French.
The panel report condemned the “gross institutional failure” of the UN in its inaction over the allegations of child sexual abuse in CAR.
Speaking for the first time about his ordeal, Kompass told the Guardian: “I feel relief and some sadness. It is still a mystery why most of the UN leadership decided to do this to me when they knew very well how badly the UN was handling these types of cases and they knew there was a big gap in terms of under reporting of these kind of cases.
