My father left my mother while she was pregnant – she gave birth when he had already left. People call me “daughter of a bitch”. They disturb and hurt me so much. They say they will chase me because I am a foreigner. I am suffering.
Emma’s story is far from unique – both according to our research and the UN’s own internal reports. However, this is the first time that children of UN peacekeepers have spoken directly about the impact of abandonment on their lives and families. According to our research, the youngest girl to have been impregnated by a UN peacekeeper was just ten years old. One in every two mothers were under the age of 18 when they conceived. In this interview, a 16-year-old mother recalls being trafficked by her family, and impregnated, at the age of ten:
Sexual violence has become a defining feature of this conflicted region. Descriptions that dub DRC the “rape capital of the world” and “the worst place in the world to be a woman” reflect how the conflict-related violence has normalised rape and sexual exploitation by civilian perpetrators, humanitarian workers and UN peacekeepers.
More than 97,000 peacekeepers from over 120 countries currently serve in 12 peacekeeping operations around the world. Despite it being the duty of all UN personnel to protect and “do no harm”, sexual wrongdoings committed against local civilians, primarily young girls, have been reported wherever missions were put in place.
As of August 4 2022, the public database of misconduct allegations in UN field missions has logged 426 allegations of sexual misconduct that implicate peacekeepers in fathering children, dating back to 2007. Only 44 of these allegations have been substantiated, with the large majority of claims remaining “pending”.
While the issue of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers has attracted significant academic and public attention, there has been much less attention paid to the children born as a result. For our DRC research project, we collected a wide range of stories from Congolese community members of all ages about the circumstances of their interactions with peacekeepers.
All expressed frustration about the lack of material support from their fathers, indicating that even the youngest participants saw their insufficient access to resources as unjust and directly linked to their father’s absence: