"Despite its mandate to protect global human rights, the U.N. has a serious sexual assault problem, which shows little sign of abating... With nearly $50 billion in annual revenue, and a workforce of more than 100,000 people, the U.N. neglects, and even punishes, survivors of sexual assault, according to staff, former staff, and experts interviewed for this article.
A January report in The Guardian provided ample documentation of this pattern, finding that U.N. staff were either ignored or fired after reporting sexual harassment, assault, and rape, while perpetrators within the organization act with impunity.
An Intercept analysis of disciplinary actions taken against U.N. Secretariat personnel – some 40,000 people excluding peacekeeping troops, U.N. Police, and others - found that the U.N. did not punish a single staff member for sexually assaulting or abusing a colleague over more than a decade spanning from 2006 to 2017...
All available information suggests that the U.N. does not keep or share statistics on staff who are sexually assaulted, but experts believe the scope of the problem may be vast.
'Wherever you go [within the U.N.], you'll find a patriarchal system that looks nothing like the world that the U.N. preaches it is striving for,' said Paula Donovan, a former U.N. employee and co-director of Code Blue, which advocates for an end to sexual assault at the U.N.
Donovan and others point to extensive data on widespread sexual assault and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers as evidence of a culture of pervasive abuse and silencing of survivors...
While the U.N. does not seem to keep system-wide, up-to-date statistics on staff sexual assault, over the years, the U.N. has produced several smaller studies that point to the same conclusion: This problem is endemic, and the U.N. mistreats survivors..."