Sri Lankan "peacekeepers" sent home over sex-for-pay scandal in Haiti

"Every two months a Tamil woman is gang-raped and murdered by the Sri Lankan security forces." Statement by NGO, Women Against Rape, at United Nations Commission on Human Rights

An occupying army of 9,000 UN military troops are currently posted to Haiti representing countries from around the world. This week, headlines announced that 114 Sri Lankan troops have been sent home in a sex-for-pay scandal where food was the currency and hungry young Haitian girls were the victims. These are not the first accusations of sexual exploitation and rape by UN forces in Haiti .As in the Congo, Kosovo, and elsewhere that UN "peacekeepers" operate, this is but the latest in an epidemic of sexual exploitation and trafficking by UN troops.

Just who are the Sri Lankan troops in Haiti? Blue helmets can't disguise the origins of troops who compose UN military forces. A commentary in Haiti-Cuba-Venezuala Analysis states, "Over the last thirty years, back home in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), soldiers used rape to subjugate a separatist group known as the Tamil. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or “Tamil Tigers” challenged the Sri Lankan government and armed forces over the right to their own homeland in the north and east of the country. In March 2000, a UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women expressed “grave concern” over lack of proper investigation into allegations of Sri Lankan soldiers’ gang raping women and children. Also, in 2000, the Asian Human Rights Commission stated that the rapes against Tamil women were systematic in nature and were used as a weapon of war.

http://www.haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=206