UN Mission In Congo Forces Reckoning Over Sex Abuse Scandal

In this photo taken Aug 11, 2016, 26-year-old Angel poses for a portrait in the Congo Ituri province capital Bunia. Angel worked as a maid at the U.N camp for Senegalese peacekeepers and said she became pregnant after being raped in 2005. Her daughter is now 12 years-old. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

The United Nation's sexual abuse and exploitation scandal among peacekeepers is back in the spotlight with fresh calls for reform.

The Associated Press report continues:

In a year-long investigation, The Associated Press found that despite promising reforms for more than a decade, the U.N. still fails to meet many of its pledges to stop the abuse or help victims, some of whom have been lost to a sprawling bureaucracy. Cases disappear, or are handed off to the peacekeepers' home countries - which often do nothing.

Of the dozen women interviewed by the AP in Congo, all but one said they were forced to fend for themselves financially as young mothers. Despite pledges of aid at the time, not a single woman had received any money from the U.N. or from any of the troop-contributing countries.

If the U.N. sexual abuse crisis has an epicenter, it is Congo, where the scope of the problem first emerged - and where reforms have clearly fallen short. Of the 2,000 sexual abuse complaints made against the U.N. worldwide over the past 12 years, more than 700 occurred in Congo.