UN's
Ban Has "No
Idea" If
Sexual
Violence
Increases,
Speaker Slams
Kristof
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 10 --
The UN has a
Sexual
Violence and
Conflict
office, which
Inner City
Press
questioned
last month
about UN
Peacekeeping's
under-performance
in Walikale in
the Democratic
Republic of
Congo.
But
Wednesday at
the UN a more
fundamental
critique was
offered by
Andrew Mack of
the Human
Security
Report
Project, which
is funded by
Sweden
Switzerland
and the UK,
for now.
Inner
City Press
asked Mack
about the
Sexual
Violence
office -
should it be
collecting
more data?
Mack
said that when
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon offers
briefs to the
Security
Council on
this topic, he
has
"absolutely no
idea"
if sexual
violence is
increasing or
decreasing.
Mack said
there were
moves in 2010
to start
collecting
such data, but
nothing was
done.
Will the UN
Security
Council, on
which the UK
has a
Permanent
seat, take any
action on
this?
Mack
also
criticized a
op-ed in New
York Times in
2008 by
Nicholas
Kristof
saying the 75%
of women in
Liberia had
been raped.
Mack said
Kristof
"mis-read a
report" - the
figure Mack
said for being
a victim of
sexual
violence is
18%, which is
high, but the
same as
in the US. Video
here, from
Minute 21:55.
This
is the same
Kristof who
recently wrote
about the
mistreatment
of
women by
Bangladesh -
only in terms
of the Grameen
Bank founder,
whom
he'd met at
the Clinton
Global
Initiative,
with no
mention of
Bangladesh
saying that
the plight of
the Rohingya
is "not our
problem." And
so it goes.
Watch this
site.
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