Haitian women filed the first complaints against UN peacekeepers in 2015.
The Chilean Human Rights Commission (CCHDH) and about a dozen Haitian, women’s rights and pro-immigrant organizations said on Monday that they were seeking justice for the women who were sexually abused by Chilean soldiers participating in UN peacekeeping operations in the Caribbean nation.
A recent report published on the academic website The Conversation and cited by The New York Times said that Haitian women were the victims of rapes at the hands of UN Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) soldiers between 2004 and 2017, with about 20 percent of the sexual assaults being committed by Chilean soldiers.
Members of the UN mission, which ranks as one of the four with the most sexual abuse complaints in the world, allegedly raped and sexually abused scores of women, abandoning at least 265 children they fathered in Haiti.
Chilean soldiers, according to the report, were implicated in the third-most cases, trailing only military personnel from Brazil and Uruguay, and Cap-Haitien, where Chile’s troops were deployed, is home to 8.7 percent of the children fathered by MINUSTAH soldiers.
CCHDH director Carlos Margotta said the Chilean army should take responsibility for the actions of its men, adding that “they should be very concerned” and should cooperate with judicial authorities to avoid becoming “accomplices in these incidents.”