More than 100 Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers accused of sexual exploitation and abuse in Haiti could face hard labor if found guilty, the military said yesterday, but said an inquiry was needed first.
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Friday 108 of Sri Lanka's 950 soldiers in Haiti were being sent home on disciplinary grounds over allegations of "transactional sex."
She said there were also allegations involving underage girls.
"Definitely, if they are proved guilty the maximum punishment will be given according to the Sri Lankan law and military law," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Under Sri Lankan law, hard labor is the maximum punishment for such offenses, but it was not immediately clear what the maximum sentence was.
Sri Lanka's government has been criticized for sheltering troops fighting a civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels at home against accusations of human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings.
The UN's Montas said it was now up to Sri Lanka to deal with the abuse allegations of the peacekeepers.
"They are back under national jurisdiction. So far, Sri Lanka has said ... that they are going to be prosecuted in Sri Lanka," she said.
Over the last few years, as peacekeeping missions have expanded, reports of abuse have spread in various African nations, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite the UN's declared "zero-tolerance" policy.
The UN largely ignored sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and other field staff for decades, launching a public crackdown only in recent years after reports of abuse surfaced in the Congo.
A 2005 UN report said soldiers should be punished for any sexual abuse, their pay docked and a fund set up to assist any women and girls they impregnated. But member nations have not agreed.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS