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By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 27 – The US State Department's new Human Trafficking Report puts Burundi in the lowest (third) tier, stating that "Burundi is a source country for children and possibly women subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Due to a complex political, economic, and security crisis in 2015, more than 400,000 Burundians fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries and many others sought
refuge at internally displaced persons (IDP) camps or moved to the homes of extended family members. Burundi’s fragile economic and security environment created an opportunity for criminals, including traffickers, to take advantage of Burundians in precarious or desperate situations. There is little official data
available on abuses committed against Burundi’s approximately 60,000 IDPs, 60 percent of whom are younger than age 18 and are highly vulnerable to exploitation." And yet the UN Security Council has not even ensured that the 226 UN Police they "mandated" to go have gone (none have). Of Cameroon, in the watchlist for downgrading from Tier Two to Three, the report states "the previously established taskforces in the Southwest and Littoral regions were not operational during the reporting period, and the government did not establish taskforces in the remaining seven regions. In an attempt to
reduce the number of Cameroonian women exploited in Kuwait, the government banned all women and youth from traveling to the Middle East from the Douala airport; to circumvent
the ban, however, migrant workers began transiting Nigeria en route to the Middle East, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking." We'll have more on this. Back in March, on the day after the UN Security Council debated human trafficking and US Ambassador Nikki Haley cited a proposal by US Senator Bob Corker, including to raise private funds to combat trafficking, in DC the State Department was asked about it: "Nikki Haley, yesterday or the day before, was talking about another billion dollars against human trafficking at the UN.  So how do you reconcile something like that with these kinds of cuts?" Acting spokesperson Mark Toner replied, "this is going to be a conversation that we’re having going forward.  Again, we’re still – and I know I said this a lot, but we’re still in early days here.  We recognize, I think, the challenge in front of us.  The Secretary was very clear in his note to the personnel within the State Department.  There are – this is a challenge.  We’re looking at a restricted budget.  Nobody’s deluded about that.  We’re very clear-eyed about the challenge here.  And that means looking at, as I said, a range of programs across the board, but looking at them with an eye towards where can we find efficiencies, where can we cut cost but not lose effectiveness.  This isn’t about necessarily abandoning certain priorities with respect to others.  It’s about trying to find ways to do more with a little bit less."

   Corker has called for reforms at the UN, few of which are yet to be implemented. This too should change.

  On US inauguration day on January 20 at the US Mission to the UN the photos of Obama, Biden, Kerry and Samantha Power came down. As of February 17 they have not been replaced.
 
  But as elsewhere an "Alt USUN" Twitter account continues in a parallel online universe the views of Power, recently calling out Nikki Haley for only attending three of 13 UN Security Council meetings, on Ukraine, ISIS and Israel - Palestine.

  Fair enough. But how many meetings did Samantha Power attend? And after the Israel - Palestine meeting Nikki Haley took questions at the Security Council stakeout, not pre-screened by Power's spokesman Kurtis Cooper.

  Now the account is opposing any US budget cuts to the UN, and retweeting critiques of Rex Tillerson hand picking media to accompany his trip to Asia. Did they say anything when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon took no press, or when Antonio Guterres handpicked Al Jazeera to accompany him to Somalia?

  In fact, Isobel Coleman who did nothing when the DC-based whistleblower protection group Government Accountability Project wrote to her about the UN's eviction of the investigative Press, here, still as of February 17 lists herself as the US representative on UN reform. Is it true?

   In the UN itself, Obama and Hillary Clinton nominee Jeffrey Feltman has gotten his UN contract extended. Inner City Press first reported, from multiple sources, that Feltman sought this so that his UN pension would hit the five year vesting dateline. The UN's holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric called Inner City Press' question, and by implication Inner City Press, "despicable." Or is that, deplorable?

  Meanwhile Voice of America, which was shown under the US Freedom of Information Act to have asked the UN to throw out the investigative Press, has now asked about Jared Kushner (video via here) and asked the UK about Nikki Haley's inexperience. Like we said, an alternative universe.

  Other former State Department officials like Bathsheba Crocker wring their hands about changes in foreign policy. But what did they do, when the UN killed 10,000 plus people in Haiti with cholera? They had their time to try to improve the UN, and largely failed. It's time to #MoveOn.

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