Commentary: Where's The Justice? Sexual Abuse Continues At The United Nations

I remember how fresh I felt on that first day of spring in 2006, when I finally got to put on a flowered dress and head to work. I was living in Geneva, Switzerland at the time and working for a health agency—a branch of the UN. When I stepped into my office, a male colleague in his late 40’s was coming out of his. He walked briskly toward me like he had an important task needing the immediate assistance of the communications officer (me). 

“You look like a Singapore Airlines flight attendant,” he said smiling and then walked away.

Why did his comment make me feel so horrible? Was he saying something about where he thought I belonged in life, that I ought to be serving cocktails to businessmen in first class? Was he suggesting that the style of my dress was inappropriate for the agency? Was it too short? Too tight? Too flowery? Too colorful?  I was plagued.  I couldn’t get my mind on work. I just sat in my office perplexed, not wanting to move. I lost all motivation for the day. I knew the man was married and had two grown children, and he knew I was in a serious trans-Atlantic relationship. I tried to blow off the comment, but over four years later it still sticks in my mind as verbal sexual abuse.

So where is the UN today in their fight to combat sexual harassment? 

Angela Kane, Under-Secretary for Management said in an “Accountability for a Stronger United Nations” statement issued on July 28 2010:

“Assertive new measures and a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to sexual harassment have led to a dramatic drop in the number of cases submitted for administrative action.”

Her statement comes after a slew of allegations by the departing head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), Ms. Inga-Britt Ahlenius, who claimed in a report that the Secretary General’s Office and the Office of Management have thwarted her efforts to deliver full accountability and transparency to UN system-wide cases of abuse and misconduct. Specifically, Ms. Ahlenius states that her ability to recruit staff, in particular female staff, was undermined by headquarters as were concerns with financial disclosure, procurement and ethics issues.

Ms. Kane responds:

“The Secretary-General and his team consider these instruments key to building a modern UN that strives for excellence and reflects our diverse membership — including true gender balance.  Indeed, the Secretary-General has appointed more women to senior positions than ever before in the Organization’s history. He has increased the appointment of women at the three highest ranks by 40 percent; and by 60 percent at the Under-Secretary-General level.  Before he took office, there were no female SRSGs (Special Representatives to the Secretary-General). Today there are five.”

Hopefully, the new Chief of OIOS will be able to gain some leverage in a department heretofore ignored and criticized by the Secretary General and his offices of management. A shining example of the latter’s obstinacy is the 2003 case of Cynthia Brzak and former Secretary General Kofi Annan.  Annan’s unwillingness to punish then head of UNHCR, Mr. Ruud Lubbers after Annan received the OIOS report citing Lubbers had sexually abused Ms. Brzak was a complete failure of the system. It was the media that put pressure on Lubbers with a lot of bad publicity and eventually led him to resign, effectively solving the problem before Annan had to intervene.

The current Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon does have one notch up on his belt. By July 2009, his goal to win approval from the United Nations General Assembly for the creation of a new Office of Administrative Justice was achieved.  The new Office boasts in its handbook the “hallmark of the new system is that it be independent. ” Like the old system, the new system is set up to address situations in which staff members feel that their rights have been violated and the rules of the Organization have not been respected. The difference now being that staff do not have to go through a bureaucratic process of informing human resources and then waiting weeks if not months, to have their claim glanced at by heads of their own department—people who may very well be the culprits in the crime of abuse.  The new policy provides a much more efficient process for addressing grievances.

The AOJ (Administration of Justice) guide entitled “A Guide to Resolving Disputes” emphasizes the important role of the newly created Dispute Tribunal where independent judges are hired to make binding decisions on individual cases brought before them. If the staff member or the Secretary General dispute the decision, they may then take their case to the Appeals Tribunal for a second review.  The guide provides a step-by-step approach on what a staff member should do when they want to report a case of abuse. The manual asks “What do I do first?” and then offers several steps, which include familiarizing oneself with the rules governing the particular matter of abuse and speaking “to colleagues, a supervisor or manager you trust.” It then underscores if no resolution is found, that the employee should contact the Ombudsman to avoid litigation.  Thus, the staff member who has been a victim of misconduct does not have to wait; he or she can contact the Registries and Staff Legal Assistance office of the UN Dispute Tribunal to put forth his or her case. There is also a new UN Focal Point for Women, which monitors and advocates for gender balance, and also provides counseling and guidance for women staff who contact the Office to resolve situations involving harassment, discrimination, or abuse.

“The main difference is the UN Administrative Tribunal is a binding system. It takes over from a sixty year old peer review process where volunteers are staff members. This process used to be conducted through the Office of Management. In the new system, judges are selected by the General Assembly. It is a two tier external system and we are fully independent,” Kristina Carey, Special Assistant to the Executive Director in the Office of Administration of Justice told me via a telephone interview. 

The new UN office of Administrative Justice is expected to have a busy season. Sexual abuse, exploitation, and harassment cases within the UN system-wide body consistently seem to surface.

Just last month, the local Sri Lankan press reported allegations of sexual harassment at the UN Mission to Sri Lanka in New York. Apparently, the Deputy Representative (that’s next in command to the Ambassador), Mr. Bandula Jayasekara was accused of sexually abusing the mission’s First Secretary, Ms. Muditha Haliyedda. The Deputy was recalled back to Sri Lanka after the Ambassador voted to side with Ms. Haliyedda. In response, Mr. Jayasekara went all over the airwaves to dispute Ms. Haliyedda’s accusations:

“It is a figment of imagination of a paranoid woman who wants to get rid of me in order to run her parallel administration. This is a tactic used by this employee of the mission in the past, which perhaps was successful and it has been tried again. Her political connections are used to have her own way in the mission and the employees are harassed and threatened. Anyone who stands in her way is threatened to be transferred from the mission.”

I know Muditha fairly well, having met her at the mission when I went to interview the Ambassador last year. I always received a warm reception at the mission and met Mr. Jayasekara as well. So I rang Muditha up a few days ago to find out what really happened. As I expected, she wasn’t really allowed to discuss details of the case but she was adamant about my not using the  phrase “sexual harassment,” which she told me she did not like at all.  

“Its not in our culture to say such things,” she said, seemingly afraid. “I can say only that my Ambassador and my family fully supported me and that the harassment was office harassment.” 

Muditha would not tell me what she meant by “office” harassment. 

“Tala, what I can say is that justice was served and I am at peace with that.”

I am happy for Muditha. Maybe she has found her peace. Or so she wants me to believe. Whether it was “office” harassment or sexual harassment, women in her position are often scared to come forward with their complaints. We feel cornered. When you’re labeled an exotic flight attendant, or a paranoid woman, you are denied the very sense of professional legitimacy that you need in order to feel confident about asserting your rights. And according to the transnational ideals to which the UN subscribes, such behavior constitutes abusive, misogynistic harassment, no matter which cultural standard you embrace.