Today, I sent an open letter to the UN Secretary-General with one straightforward question: was Fabrice Aidan ever investigated while serving as a staff member of the UN Secretariat, in light of the DOJ-released Epstein correspondence and recent French reporting?
If the UN did investigate and took disciplinary action, then how was Aidan later able to re-enter the UN system and work at UNESCO between 2019 and 2023?
Was his record ever entered into ClearCheck: the UN’s system-wide screening mechanism meant to prevent the rehiring of individuals linked to misconduct?
And if the UN did not investigate, then what exactly did the Secretariat do when it was reportedly informed in 2013 of an FBI report concerning his alleged conduct?
If the UN did not investigate, it must explain why
If the UN did investigate, it must disclose the outcome.
The United Nations cannot claim to uphold rules it applies selectively. Accountability cannot be something imposed on the powerless while those embedded in elite networks are shielded from scrutiny.
Continued silence will only confirm what many staff have learned through experience: governance, ethics, and accountability operate in one direction only: downward.
“I would not let the UN teach me morals. Having a baby in Africa is nothing. Where one has a baby, she wanted a baby. How many people have babies here? The UN does not understand that. The UN thinks that she has been victimized by the UN staff who came. No, it’s the opposite.”
This was the shocking statement of a MONUSCO international staff member to the UN tribunal after he was dismissed for sexual exploitation and abuse of a local woman in Goma.
Last week, the UNDT rendered a damning judgment UNDT/2025/089, Compaore v. Secretary-General, which evidences a systemic collapse of compliance with the principle of “do no harm” among UN international staff and highlights the widening gap between the Organisation’s proclaimed norms and its operational realities.
What the Tribunal recounts next reveals a level of predation that documents the institutional inability to give effect to every policy, every training, and every public assertion that the Organisation upholds the principle of ‘do no harm”.
“The staff member met the local woman when she was selling vegetables on the roadside in Goma took her number and, within days, he was having regular sexual intercourse with her.
He knew that there was a notable status differential between him, an international United Nations staff member and the SEA survivor, a seller on the market in Goma.
The woman earned between USD 10 and USD 25 per month… she was also supporting her ten-year-old son. By contrast, the staff member’s net salary was approximately USD 14,000 per month.
He visited her at her house and started giving her significant sums of money up to half of her month’s earnings as well as promised to help opening her own business…
…when the victim informed him that she became pregnant as a result, he reacted angrily, and called her a ‘prostitute’ and ‘thief,’ telling her to leave his house.
He then took the local woman far to meet with a pharmacist that he knew, using a UN vehicle. At the location of the pharmacist, he asked her to do a pregnancy test, which was positive.
He then asked the pharmacist how they could arrange an abortion even though the local woman informed him that she did not want to abort. He then organized a meeting at a hotel in Goma, during which the pharmacist pressured the local woman to get an abortion; and he gave her US$ 400.00 (i.e. the equivalent of four months’ income or seven months’ rent for her) to financially incentivize her to get an abortion.
After giving her the money for an abortion, he filed a criminal complaint against her, accusing her of harassing him and of claiming money from him. In his complaint, he requested the police to verify if she was still pregnant, while being aware that abortion is a criminal offence in the DRC.
He then made the local woman sign an agreement in exchange of USD 8,000 payment. As part of this agreement, the local woman also signed a letter withdrawing allegations against him which were then pending in the local court.”
I mean if this is the outcome of years of UN training on “do no harm” then we are forced to confront the undeniable truth: something is not merely broken: something is rotten at the core. And perhaps the deeper tragedy is this: people have become so accustomed to this pattern of abuse that they have grown desensitized to it. These cases no longer shock; they are absorbed as routine background noise.
We must ask ourselves: who is reading these stories? Who is outraged? And why is this not shaking the Organisation to its foundations?
What is truly galling is that the international staff member stood before the Tribunal and insisted the relationship was consensual. The Tribunal, drawing on Makeen 2024-UNAT-1461, para. 52, citing Lucchini rejected this narrative entirely, establishing that in the face of glaring economic deprivation and an overwhelming power differential, genuine consent was impossible. Sex in such a situation is inherently coercive and any claimed consent collapses under legal and ethical scrutiny.
The Tribunal also held that the survivor’s “withdrawal of the complaints in domestic proceedings, following an $8,000 financial settlement,” does not absolve the perpetrator nor constrain the UN’s authority to act, since national acquittals do not extinguish administrative responsibility.
The staff member disputed the proportionality of his dismissal, arguing that a mere reprimand or censure would have sufficed. This position attempts to recast predatory conduct as a correctable misjudgment rather than misconduct of such severity that it renders continued employment untenable. It is a defence that collapses on its face when measured against the Organisation’s core obligations and basic standards of conduct.
The problem is just like the genocide in Palestine, people have become used to harm so much that these stories pass almost unremarkable. And the UN surely counts on this.
The Secretary-General’s report reduces survivors to numerical entries processed through a statistical frame that neutralizes emotional and moral response. As with the enumeration of Palestinian casualties, human beings are converted into data units. Numerical abstraction becomes the mechanism of desensitization.
Let me give you a few examples of what the dashboard reveals. Under the category of UN staff and related personnel:
Less than a week ago, on 20 and 21 November, two separate allegations were recorded against WHO personnel for sexual exploitation.
On 30 October, an allegation was filed against IOM for rape of a child by a UN Volunteer.
On 23, 21 and 20 October, three distinct allegations were filed for sexual assault of children under 18 in both IOM and UNRWA.
According to the same data, for 2024, children constituted 15% of victims, and disturbingly, an additional 17% were listed as “victim age unknown.” That alone illustrates how incomplete or deliberately under-specified the reporting is. For the same year, rape accounted for 13% of allegations, and sexual assault 20%. Assistance was provided in only 20% of cases, with the remainder categorized on the dashboard as “victim declined,” “victim did not seek assistance,” “victim unidentified,” or “victim unreachable.” This is the measure in practice of “do no harm” and of the supposed restoration of victims’ dignity.
Then there is the separate category of implementing partners whose personnel are not formally under UN authority but who execute UN-funded projects.
On 4, 8, 9, 19 and 28 November 2025, five allegations were lodged for sexual assault, two involving children under 18 in connection with UNICEF-supported activities.
On 9, 14, 16 and 19 October 2025, another four allegations were recorded, three of which were also for assault of children under 18, again linked to UNICEF-related projects.
I mean yes, these individuals are not UN staff; they are personnel of implementing partners. But the question is unavoidable: is the UN exercising due diligence over the entities it entrusts with its mandate?
Does the UN engage implementing partners to improve conditions for children, or are these partnerships, through negligence or indifference, creating new avenues for their abuse?
In 2025 so far, there have been 41 allegations of rape, of which 37 involved children under 18. These were linked to projects implemented for:
UNICEF (14)
WFP (13)
WHO (4)
UNOPS (4)
UNHCR (3)
OCHA (1)
In 2024, children under 18 accounted for at least 28% of all SEA allegations and that figure is conservative, given that an additional 24% of victims were listed as “age unknown.”
Rape constituted 12% of total allegations that year.
Then there is the category of peacekeeping and special political missions, where rape of children is clearly systemic. It is easier to avert one’s gaze, but perhaps this is precisely where scrutiny must intensify.
And here I am also analyzing numbers. This is the trap inherent in quantitative reporting: patterns and ratios take over, and the individual victims disappear. Behind each statistic is a life: a child with a name, a family, a history, a future now fractured.
Who explains to a 10-year-old boy that he will be alright after being raped? Who provides care and schooling for a child born of sexual exploitation? Who treats the psychological, physical, and social scars inflicted by those who arrived under the blue flag claiming protection?
Why are we still here? Why are we reading these findings while maintaining the fiction that the UN enforces a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse? Each year we hear the same prescriptions: more funding, more training, more risk-mapping, more awareness. Yet the same patterns recur.
The Secretary-General’s report to the General Assembly is extensive and data-heavy, but this is precisely the problem: its architecture buries the actual crisis under layers of metrics and operational jargon. And there, almost unnoticed in the middle of the document, sits the real revelation:
In 2024, 64,585 United Nations staff members responded to the annual perception survey on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. Of those, 3.65% (2,360 people) stated that it was acceptable to pay for sex, and close to 1% (555) indicated that it was acceptable to engage in sexual activity with a child, with one-third of those respondents occupying supervisory roles.
This alone reveals how embedded and normalized the culture of sexual exploitation and abuse has become within the UN and this does not even account for uniformed personnel, national police contingents, or military forces contributed by Member States to peacekeeping missions.
So why is the situation not improving and in several respects deteriorating? Policies are revised, bulletins updated, special coordination units created, but the real deficit lies in accountability, and not only accountability for the direct perpetrator.
And what about the perpetrators who are shielded rather than sanctioned? What about the cases quietly buried because they involve personnel with the right connections or the right nationality? What about internal directives to “avoid reputational exposure” that override the rights of victims?
The UN pursues low-level offenders as symbolic sacrifices while preserving the machinery that protects enablers, decision-makers, and silent bystanders. The Organization reports terminations as proof of resolve, yet accountability is never directed at those within HR, Legal, Ethics, or senior management who intervened to suppress complaints, stall proceedings, or intimidate victims. That is where the deeper accountability lies, and that is precisely where none is exercised.
Why is there no scrutiny of the senior officials who instruct HR and Legal to make cases “go away”? What about the victims who never report, either out of fear or because the system has taught them that nothing will happen? What about the managers whose first instinct is to protect their own reporting profile before the Security Council or the General Assembly? And what of the Legal and HR officers who invoke “insufficient evidence” as a procedural shield as though the absence of formal proof were not itself often the product of investigative indifference or institutional suppression?
The Secretary-General’s own report acknowledges that since 2006, approximately 750 paternity and child support claims arising from UN peace operations have been recorded with over 500 still unresolved. Most Member States have failed to take any meaningful steps toward resolution. Meanwhile, the children born of these abuses, many now approaching adulthood, remain without schooling, without healthcare, without legal recognition, and trapped in lifelong stigma. They live in conditions of uncertainty and marginalization, the direct human legacy of UN negligence.
Protracted investigation and disciplinary timelines are cited as “systemic challenges,” but they function as structural impediments to justice. Delays in inquiry, opaque handling of outcomes, and the absence of visible consequences reinforce a culture of impunity and corrode the Organization’s credibility. Even now, there remains no real accountability for those in leadership who failed in their obligation to act. The burden falls only on the isolated offender, never on those who enabled, ignored, or suppressed the cases.
Alarmingly, in 2024, the internal survey itself recorded a stark indicator of institutional distrust: 6% of UN respondents,roughly 3,700 staff expressed no confidence in leadership’s ability to address sexual exploitation and abuse, up from 3% the previous year.The doubling reflects a measurable deterioration in trust in leadership.
The reality we must confront is this: a child in Bangui may flee from what he perceives as the threat (the militia or armed group) and run instead toward the UN blue helmets, whom he believes to be protectors. But the risk now is that he runs straight into the arms of his abuser. The UN’s personnel (civilian and military) leverage the UN’s image as a guardian and savior to secure access to vulnerable populations. They weaponize the very trust invested in the UN.
This is what makes the situation intolerable: the UN is not a bystander to these violations but the mechanism through which access to victims is enabled. When trust itself becomes the instrument of abuse, the UN mission has already failed at its fundamental duty: protection
On 23 October, UN Staff 4 Gaza issued a press release announcing the launch of a memorial project for UN personnel killed by Israel in Gaza. The group is led by former senior UN staff, many of whom I have worked with.
Before getting into what is fundamentally wrong, on multiple levels, with this action and with this press release, I want to acknowledge what is positive. It is the first time a public statement explicitly uses the word killed and names the perpetrator, Israel :
“More than 370 members of UN personnel have been confirmed killed by the Israel Defense Forces since October 2023.”
Most others still refer to these colleagues as “dead,” carefully omitting the party responsible. That UN Staff 4 Gaza names Israel directly is due in large part to the fact that its leaders are former senior UN officials; otherwise, they would have been dismissed immediately by the organization. Still, they deserve credit for calling things by their name. The release also correctly states that the majority of those killed were UNRWA staff, not general “UN staff,” a distinction long overdue.
It is precisely because its leaders are former UN staff that they have space for more forceful action and bolder language, unless this entire exercise is simply a PR moment, a gateway to a few interviews on Al Jazeera or other international media, followed by silence.
A memorial has symbolic value, but it falls painfully short of what UNRWA staff killed in Gaza actually deserved. Given the positions and titles these former officials once held, they can do far more. If they genuinely seek to honour UNRWA staff, they can begin by addressing the Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, and demand to know why the families of the UNRWA staff killed in Gaza continue to be denied their entitlements.
I doubt the staff who were killed were wondering about a future memorial. Their concerns were very different: If I die, who will take care of my children? Who will support my spouse, my parents? Who will ensure my children have access to education, medicine, stability? That they have enough funds if they choose to escape this hell voluntarily?
No one lies awake at night hoping that their children will one day visit a monument with their name etched on it. They hope their children will survive and be protected.
Many will interpret this as diminishing the efforts of UN Staff 4 Gaza. It is not. I respect most of them, and I know several personally who carry the Palestinian cause with sincerity. This is precisely why their voices, reputations, and platforms matter, and why they should be used for something that will actually serve the families of the UNRWA staff killed by Israel in Gaza, many of whom were killed in the line of service.
There is another point that must be said plainly. If those killed had been American, British, German, Canadian, take your pick, there would already be dozens of committees, campaigns, and advocacy groups demanding justice, pushing relentlessly for reparations, lobbying governments, flooding the media. But when the victims are Palestinian, the system stops at pity. It never reaches action.
This is what a colonial hierarchy looks like: grief is permitted, justice is not.
A brief reminder: the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, gave the bereaved families USD 300 each instead of the USD 126,000 to which they are entitled. And no, the reason is not that UNRWA has a “different set of rules.” The management deliberately excluded the Gaza staff from the annual insurance coverage.
Another reminder: to this day, the Commissioner-General has not released the Provident Fund savings of the deceased staff. These savings belong to the staff and their families, not to the Agency. Nothing prevents UNRWA from releasing these funds or, at minimum, continuing to pay their salaries against their accumulated savings until compensation is properly processed.
If the goal is truly to honour the UNRWA staff killed by Israel in Gaza, then start with real work.
A memorial is beautiful, but beauty does not feed children, does not pay school fees, does not treat trauma, does not bring stability. What will come next is predictable: the unveiling, the photo ops for senior officials, and another round of speeches, while the families still search for someone willing to raise their case and push it forward.
A memorial may stand in stone, but justice must stand in action. Right now, the former is moving ahead, and the latter is nowhere in sight.
This picture is published with the explicit consent of Nadia, the widow of Ahmad, an UNRWA staff member killed by Israel on 29 May 2025 on Al-Tina Street in Khan Younis, in front of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation parcels of death.
Ahmad was no stranger to service to Palestinian refugees. For 19 years, he worked as a psychosocial support officer in UNRWA’s Education Department, walking alongside the children of Gaza through their trauma. When the war erupted on 7 October 2023, Ahmad and Nadia were forced to flee their home more than 19 times, moving from the north to the south, governorate to governorate, under bombardment. Yet every day, Ahmad continued to report to duty. He never stopped serving.
In May 2025, while UNRWA salaries were suspended until 2 June, Ahmad went to check on the humanitarian parcels being distributed. He stopped to speak with a US army officer about the impossible conditions his people faced. Moments later, as he walked away, an Israeli sniper’s bullet pierced his chest. He was killed instantly.
His death reached Nadia not through the Agency he had served for nearly two decades, but through a photograph posted anonymously on Facebook. This is how she discovered her husband had been reduced to a martyr without a name.
Nadia is left with four children, stripped not only of a husband and father but of the family’s only income. Ahmad’s monthly salary was $1,200, their livelihood. When she reported her husband’s death to UNRWA management and sought the compensation to which she was entitled, the Agency offered no support; instead, it immediately cut off Ahmed’s salary, thereby exacerbating the family’s already meager financial situation and deepening her suffering and that of her children. And UNRWA’s position to her was blunt: no family of a staff member killed since 7 October 2023 has received compensation.
Under the UN Malicious Acts Insurance Policy (MAIP), every UN staff member killed in an act of war is entitled to compensation, which for an UNRWA national staff is approximately $123,000. This is not discretionary. It is a right enshrined in the UN rules. Every UN organization pays annual premiums to enroll its international and national staff in this policy.
Every UN organization, except UNRWA for its Palestinian staff.
UNRWA International staff are covered.
UNRWA Palestinian staff are Not.
This is systemic discrimination, sustained knowingly and purposefully by the Commissioner-General. It is an unlawful exclusion of more than 550 Palestinian families from the protections guaranteed by the UN Charter itself.
In addition, Ahmad’s Provident Fund savings, likely between $40,000 and $60,000 remain frozen. These funds belong to him and to his family. Nothing prevents the Agency from releasing them or, at the very least, continuing to pay his salary against the balance of his own savings until proper compensation is processed. This is a basic fiduciary obligation.
The Commissioner-General, Lazzarini, holds the authority to establish exceptional rules in response to exceptional circumstances. There is no circumstance more exceptional than Palestine today, only yesterday formally acknowledged by the United Nations as a genocide. Yet this authority has not been exercised to protect the very staff who continue to serve under fire, or the families of those who have been killed.
Instead, Lazzarini chose to invoke “exceptional rules” to suspend the salaries of more than 500 Palestinian teachers who fled Gaza to Egypt in a desperate attempt to survive. He acted swiftly when it came to punishment, but stands idle when faced with the obligation to ensure dignity and justice for the families of the slain hiding behind vile bureaucratic walls. This selective application of authority reveals not only negligence but a grave breach of duty.
This is now a matter of the Commissioner-General Lazzarini’s willful breach of duty and abdication of his duty of care toward Palestinian staff, committed openly and brazenly in the midst of a genocide. Why is the Commissioner-General allowed to inflict more suffering on Palestinian staff than Israel itself?
Nadia gave me this picture to show the world what UNRWA will not say: Israel killed her husband, and the Organization he served abandoned her and her children to starve, under Lazzarini’s watch, while the Secretary-General looks away.
To speak for Nadia is to speak for the 550 families of UNRWA staff killed by Israel and betrayed by the Organization they served.
Open Letter To the Executive Directors of UN Women, UNICEF, and UNFPA
Nadine Kaddoura
Founder @CERTIORARIS and former UN Senior Staff
15 September 2025
To: Ms. Sima Bahous, Secretary-General of the United Nations
cc:
Deputy Secretary-General, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed
Ms. Catherine Russell, Executive Director, UNICEF
Ms. Diene Keita, Executive Director of UNFPA
Ms. Reem Alsalem UN Special Rapporteur, Violence Against Women and Girls
I am writing to alert you that 480 UNRWA women teachers have been unlawfully placed on special leave without pay after having fled under the bombs from Gaza to a safe haven outside the occupied palestinian territories, on their own.
In total, 584 staff have been affected, of which 480 are women.
480 women.
That means more than four out of every five staff punished by this measure are women. A shocking 82 per cent.
This level of disproportionate harm to women constitutes a glaring violation of women’s rights and requires immediate corrective measures and urgent redress, consistent with the mandates of your offices.
These women fled Gaza alone, with no support, under conditions of extreme hardship. Many had lost family members, seen their homes destroyed, and were left without access to basic healthcare or food to care for their children or themselves. Neither UNRWA nor any other agency offered them safe shelter, not even a tent.
Not even a tent.
With no protection, they had no choice but to seek safety and urgent medical care on their own.
They continued to work remotely from Egypt, fulfilling their duties despite everything. Yet the Commissioner-General decided unlawfully to place them on exceptional leave without pay for a full year.
The testimonies of these UNRWA women are unbearable. Some are now forced to clean homes in Egypt just to provide food to their children. Women in conflict and displacement, when stripped of income and social protection, face heightened risks of violence, including sexual violence and exploitation. Displacement, combined with economic insecurity, deepens their vulnerability. Women who cannot provide for their children are more easily coerced, more likely to be subjected to abuse in exchange for the bare necessities of survival. Refugee women denied access to jobs or financial services are left even more exposed, more susceptible to violence, abuse, and exploitation. Economic empowerment in such contexts is not simply about income. It is a tool of protection. The provision of salaries, support, and protection services is what now stands between these women and exploitation.
No explanation can soften what you will read next. I leave you to judge for yourself, in their own voices, below.
Testimony 1 – UNRWA Gaza Female Teacher
“After ten years of IVF, I finally had a baby but he was a child with special needs. When the bombing started, I ran with him to Egypt to keep him alive. My husband stayed behind to care for his parents. A few days later, they were all killed, my husband and his parents. Now it is just me and my baby. UNRWA cut my salary, and I cannot pay for kindergarten or for the care my child with special needs requires. I don’t know how I am supposed to manage.”
Testimony 2 – UNRWA Gaza Female Teacher
“My daughter was badly injured and had to go through more than seventeen operations. I brought her out of Gaza on a medical care option so she could be treated, but I had to leave my other children behind. They depend only on me and on my salary. Instead of helping me in this situation, UNRWA put me on unpaid leave for a whole year even though I kept working remotely with full dedication while caring for my daughter in hospital. How am I supposed to feed my other children in Gaza if I don’t even have my salary of 1,000 USD? What should I do? Tell me! What should I do?”
Testimony 3 – UNRWA Gaza Female Teacher
“I fled Gaza with my three children, running from the hell we were living through. When UNRWA cut my salary, I had no choice but to leave my children at home alone while I went to clean apartments for strangers just to bring them something to eat. How can I call this survival? What kind of life is this for me and for my children? Where is my dignity?”
Testimony 4 – UNRWA Gaza Female Teacher
“I left Gaza with my husband so he could receive cancer treatment. Six weeks later, he died. Now my children are still in Gaza, with no one to provide for them. They are living in tents, searching for food, suffering from malnutrition, and needing urgent care. And I have no salary to provide for them. Tell me, how am I supposed to keep them alive from here?”
In addition to the inherent right to protection and dignity, this decision directly contravenes United Nations General Assembly Resolution 64/290 (2010) on the right to education in emergencies. That resolution, grounded in international human rights and humanitarian law, explicitly recognizes education as lifesaving and fundamental during armed conflict. It affirms that education plays a critical role in preventing abuses against affected populations, including sexual violence, exploitation, trafficking, and the worst forms of child labour.
Further, the Incheon Declaration (2015), endorsed by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, UN Women, and UNFPA, established the global Education 2030 Agenda. Paragraph 25 clearly affirms that “education in emergency contexts is immediately protective, providing life-saving knowledge and skills and psychosocial support to those affected by crisis.”It also stresses that education equips children, youth, and adults with the tools to withstand and prevent disaster, conflict, and disease.
Women who once taught children in Gaza now find themselves silenced, cut off from their salaries, and forced into conditions of exploitation simply to feed their families.
I leave you with the image of Ritaj, a young Gazan student, sitting among the rubble with her calculator and notebooks. She went out of her building to find connection and to sit for her exams, despite being displaced and having lost her home. Even in destruction, she carried with her the tools of learning, the last anchor she had.
This picture, besides being a testament to this girl’s courageous determination, is also the clearest proof that education in emergencies is life-saving, it is protective, and it is dignity itself. To strip women teachers of their salaries in this context is to sever the very lifeline that allows children like Ritaj to hold on to hope.
I ask you, as women leading entities with clear mandates to protect women and safeguard their rights, including the right to education and the rights of children, to take immediate corrective action.
Under your mandates, you hold a direct responsibility to these Gazan women and their children. Failure to intervene and redress this situation would constitute not only a breach of that responsibility but also a denial of the protection your offices are obliged to uphold.
I urge you to exert all necessary pressure to rescind this unlawful decision and to restore the rights and entitlements of the UNRWA women affected by this unlawful decision.
This is the story of a mother and #UNICEF staff member, whose treatment by the very organization tasked with protecting children’s rights stands as a shocking betrayal of its mandate.
The staff member began her journey with #UNICEF in #Gaza as a UN Volunteer (UNV) Assistant Education Officer in October 2022. By February 2024, pregnant with her second child and increasingly concerned about her health amidst Gaza’s deteriorating medical infrastructure, she requested a medical evacuation. It was not a request for privilege but a plea for survival—for her life and that of her unborn child. UNICEF also had a responsibility to evacuate her medically.
UNICEF evacuated her to Cairo, where she gave birth in April 2024. Just weeks later, the Rafah border closed, leaving her stranded in Egypt with a newborn and a toddler. The staff member became a #Palestinian #refugee in a foreign land, grappling with a dire reality. Her UNV contract was set to expire in June 2024, but UNICEF extended it for the duration of her maternity leave—a decision dictated by UN policy, not generosity.
What UNICEF did next was a cold and calculated act that destroyed any pretense of compassion or humanity.
At the end of her maternity leave, UNICEF terminated her contract.
No transition plan.
No support.
No accountability.
A Palestinian refugee from Gaza, a mother of two young children—was left without an income and stranded in a country where she had no legal residency.
Desperate, she sent an email to UNICEF, offering to risk the unimaginable: returning to Gaza, a war-torn land with her seven-month-old baby and three-year-old child, if it meant retaining her sole source of income.
UNICEF’s shocking response?
They silenced her entirely by shutting down her email account, severing her last lifeline to plead for her children’s survival.
Yes, you read that right.
This is how UNICEF treated their own staff member—a woman and a mother—during one of the most severe humanitarian crises of our time.
UNICEF claims to uphold the rights of children and advocate for their well-being. Yet, when faced with the plight of their own staff member’s children, they turned away.
How can we trust UNICEF to safeguard the rights of the world’s most vulnerable children if they fail to protect the children of their own staff?
The justification is always the same: budget constraints, post-conversion processes, or bureaucratic hurdles. But none of these excuses explain why her UNV contract could not be extended. She had served UNICEF for two years, and her evacuation to Cairo was a medical necessity—not a luxury. Instead, it appears UNICEF cynically treated her maternity leave as an opportunity to sever ties, hiding behind technicalities while abandoning her and her children to an uncertain fate.
Why should any woman be forced to choose between the right to embrace motherhood and the right to a fulfilling career?
PerhapsUNICEFExecutive Director Catherine Russell cares to answer?
This is not just a failure of UN policy—it is a failure of ethical responsibility and the UN’s duty of care, perpetuated by an organization that claims to champion the rights of women and children.
Today, she remains in Egypt, a refugee in every sense of the word. Without legal residency, she cannot work. She cannot provide for her children. She faces insurmountable social, financial, and psychological challenges.
What are you doing to ensure that women are not forced into impossible choices that risk their lives, jeopardize their children’s futures, and strip away their livelihoods? IIf such failures continue unchecked, what is the true value of your high-profile position and the mandate it represents?
UN Women’s mandate is clear: to champion gender equality and empower women, ensuring they can fully exercise their rights—including the right to work and to motherhood without fear or discrimination. Yet, in the case of the staff member, a mother and a UN staff member, these principles have been utterly abandoned.
How can the UN Women justify forcing staff like her to choose between their maternity leave, a perilous return to Gaza, or termination of their contracts?
Where is the accountability to uphold the very values that #UNWomen is meant to represent? How can women across the UN system trust that they will be supported in their roles as professionals and mothers if even your leadership has remained silent in the face of such injustice?
How the War in Gaza Exposed UN Hypocrisy and Empty Promises
The war in Gaza has exposed many truths, but perhaps none as stark as the hypocrisy of institutions like UNICEF and UN Women. Organizations that positions themselves as the global defender of children’s rights and women’s empowerment and who failed spectacularly in upholding those principles for their own staff.
This story is a glaring indictment of a system that preaches equality and protection but practices abandonment and betrayal. For the staff member and her children—living as refugees, stripped of dignity and support—the question is not just whether the UN will uphold the principles it preaches. It is whether the world can trust institutions that exploit their own policies to discard those who serve them.
If #UNICEF and #UNWomen are unwilling to protect the very women and children in their own organizations, how can they claim the moral authority to safeguard anyone else’s?
We must demand justice for the staff and her children by calling for her immediate reinstatement with the full dignity and support she deserves—because anything less is an acceptance of hypocrisy and a betrayal of the very principles UNICEF claims to uphold.
UNRWA management is no longer reporting the deaths of UNRWA Palestinian staff members killed by I@r@e@ in Gaza.
UNRWA Commissioner-General reports the death of approximately 207 Palestinian staff members, but this number is incorrect. The actual figure is much higher, double or triple, around 500. This number excludes the hundreds of dependents that have not been accounted for.
According to direct reports, the bereaved families have stopped notifying UNRWA about the death due to fear of their salaries being cut off immediately.
When a staff member dies, UNRWA immediately removes them from the payroll instead of compensating them according to the Malicious Act Insurance Policy. Just a reminder: every bereaved family has the right to around 120,000 USD. UNRWA has not yet paid a penny.
The grieving families have chosen to stop reporting the death of their loved ones to safeguard their last remaining resource. Instead of fulfilling their obligations, UNRWA management further exploits the death of their staff members in their daily social media posts.
The discrimination is attributed to Western countries and allies being the only ones in charge of UNRWA senior management positions. Yesterday, the UNRWA Commissioner-General paid tribute to aid workers killed in the line of duty, stating that “… the war in Gaza broke all existing rules of war. Those responsible must be held accountable…”
Commissioner-General, could you start by taking responsibility for the families of UNRWA staff killed in the line of duty?
Wouldn’t it be better if you stopped breaking your own rules? The United Nations’ rules?
Could you explain why Palestinian staff are being discriminated against and not receiving the compensation they are entitled to?
Why not inform your audience about the thousands of dollars your Western Surge staff are being paid for doing nothing?
The funds intended for the bereaved families are now being disbursed to the international staff so they can enjoy rest and recovery.
In the meantime, the Commissioner-General continues pretending by writing more useless op-eds and firing more UNRWA staff.
With the focus of global attention now on Iran’s retaliation to the Israeli assault on the Iranian embassy in Syria, the UN Secretary-General is providing additional cover for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Seemingly overnight, the world’s collective gaze has swerved towards issues of ballistic missiles, belligerence, the principle of reciprocation, and Article 51 of the UN Charter.
In the midst of it all, Israel is meticulously strategizing its Rafah assault, further extending its acts of genocide without any accountability. Israel has so far killed over 42,000 Palestinians, including 15,000 innocent children and 10,000 women, while the wounded have surpassed the 80,000 mark.
Instead of focusing the world’s attention on the imminent invasion of Rafah and the continuous slaughter of the Palestinian people, the Secretary-General bewilderingly decided to spend the 5th of April emphasizing Israel as the aggrieved party.
It seems as if the Secretary-General might be indirectly supporting Israel’s acts of genocide.
In his own words, these were his opening remarks:
“This Sunday marks six months since Hamas launched its abhorrent terror attacks in Israel. The 7th of October is a day of pain for Israel and the world.
The United Nations, and I personally, mourn with Israelis for the 1,200 people, including many women and children, who were killed in cold blood. I once again utterly condemn the use of sexual violence, torture, injuring and kidnapping of civilians, the firing of rockets towards civilian targets, and the use of human shields. “
Concerning Palestinians, the Secretary-General stated:
“When the gates to aid are closed, the doors to starvation are opened”
But Mr. Secretary-General, the gates of aid are not closed. It is Israel that is blocking them.
“More than half the population – over a million people – are facing catastrophic hunger.”
But, Mr. Secretary-General, it’s not that the 2 million Palestinians are simply facing a disastrous famine. The reality is that Israel is deliberately starving them right under the world’s watchful eyes.
“Children in Gaza today are dying for lack of food and water.”
But Mr. Secretary-General, the cause of Palestinian children’s deaths is not a deficiency of water. Israel intentionally cut off any water supply to Gaza with the sole aim of killing more Palestinians.
“This is incomprehensible, and entirely avoidable.”
But Mr. Secretary-General, what is incomprehensible is how, after six months, you are quietly acknowledging the demise of diplomacy instead of denouncing the brutal killing of Palestinians.
Diplomacy which alongside the United Nations, has become at best amoral.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the United Nations appears to show less concern with the innovative and savage methods of exterminating the Palestinians. More worryingly, any remaining vestiges of the principles of international humanitarian law seemed to have been killed along the way.
Instead, when asked yesterday about the UN’s role on the temporary pier that the US is constructing in Gaza, the Secretary-General’s spokesperson proudly stated that the UN “will support any plan to increase the delivery of aid, whether by sea, air, or, of course, most importantly, by land.”
Isn’t it baffling how the Secretary-General couldn’t manage to convince the US and Israel to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people for a half-year, yet a US-built pier in Gaza, allegedly aimed at preserving Palestinian lives, is nearing completion?
When it comes to the prominent influence of the U.S. on the United Nations, one needs only look at the legislation enacted by Presidents G. Bush and Bill Clinton.
This US law unequivocally prohibits any form of financial assistance to any international organization that recognizes Palestine as a full member. This dear reader, is the chief reason that the bid for Palestine’s full membership in the UN hasn’t been successful and will never be.
This implies that if the United Nations Security Council ever approves Palestine’s full membership, the US, which is the largest contributor to the UN, is legally bound to retract its 27% assessed contributions.
That is why the Secretary-General’s statements always start by reminding the world that we ought to condemn the 7th of October attacks and mourn those killed by Hamas while hinting that Palestinians could also be facing a mysterious famine…
The 7th of April in the UN also marked the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Secretary-General made sure to issue another remarkable statement:
“We will never forget the victims of this genocide. Nor will we ever forget the bravery and resilience of those who survived, whose courage and willingness to forgive remain a burst of light and hope amidst this dark chapter in human history.
Let’s ensure that the acts that began on April 7, 1994 are never forgotten — and never repeated. Anywhere.”
Yet Mr. Secretary-General, every day, every hour, every minute, every second, Palestinians are being killed in their own land. It is called Palestine. And the world is watching in silence. In cowardice.
The Secretary-General is, of course, not directly responsible for the killings of Palestinians. He, however, takes the path of least resistance and continues to offer a plethora of rationalizations and lies to conceal his cowardice and chiefly to preserve the US funding for the United Nations.
In doing so, the Secretary-General has effectively undermined any lasting faith in the virtue of multilateralism and the ethical grounding of diplomacy.
The recent strategic move by Israel, the US, and various other Western nations to defund UNRWA is nothing but a well-orchestrated move to dismantle the Un Agency, in the mistaken confidence that doing so would somehow erase the inalienable right of return that Palestinians claim.
The deja vu crisis of defunding is about much more than just financial support and the provision of aid for humanitarian purposes.
Don’t let yourself be led astray by misguided perspectives.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that UNRWA owns registration documents, historical archives, and substantial evidence collection, which includes more than half a million varied materials such as negatives, prints, slides, films, videocassettes, documents, and even original ownership papers. All these materials comprehensively cover the life experiences and the extensive history of Palestinian refugees right from 1948 to the present times.
UNRWA stands as undeniable evidence of Palestine’s rightful belonging to the Palestinian people.
Palestinians, once the hosts to Jews on their land, have since been faced with the stark reality of their lands being claimed. Jewish immigrants then commenced a 75-year long battle of colonization against Palestine.
The issue at hand extends far beyond the confines of humanitarian aid and services.
The US and Israel are seeking to redefine what it means to be a Palestinian refugee. By attempting to defund UNRWA, Israel and the US are not only seeking to cut humanitarian aid or to collectively punish Palestinians.
Rather, their ambitious goal is to eliminate the right of return for 5.5 million Palestinian refugees by abolishing UNRWA, which maintains the refugees’ registration services.
Their goal is however, based on a fundamental misconception.
International law grants refugee status to children of other refugee populations until they return to their permanent homes. Homes that were stolen by Israeli occupation and the land that Israel occupied.
For over a decade, UNRWA has been continuously under attack, with the US and Israeli governments spearheading crisis after crisis, most notably during Trump’s 2018 campaign to defund UNRWA.
The character assassination of UNRWA employees has been a persistent aim of Israel, with a string of baseless allegations against UNRWA in the past.
For instance, in 2014, Israel used a drone video to falsely accuse two UNRWA staff members of smuggling Hamas missiles in an ambulance. It turned out they were only moving a stretcher in the ambulance.
Why should the world continue to believe Israel after its propaganda of 40 beheaded babies was used to fuel the monstrous killing and dismembering of more than 13000 Palestinian children and babies?
In the span of two decades of my service in the United Nations globally, I have never encountered neutrality breaches, save for when I was working for UNRWA or when Israeli blogs were involved.
That’s primarily because the so called neutrality breaches are fueled by Israel’s persistent attempts to dismantle UNRWA. This constant assault on UNRWA by pro-Zionist blogs results in the US administration being inundated with false claims against UNRWA staff. This, in turn, initiates a cycle of crises centered on breaches of impartiality, ultimately leading to repeated financial cuts.
The US administration and these zionist blogs are not the only culprits.
The fact that UNRWA largely depends on funds from the US and Western nations leads to senior executives being appointed from these countries.
The current Commissioner General hails from Switzerland and has dual citizenship with Italy, while the two deputy Commissioner Generals are from the USA and France. The other director posts are held by individuals from Germany and the UK. Given these influences, it hardly comes as a surprise that all these nations have hastily halted their financial support for UNRWA.
The latest debacle surfaced when Israeli officials requested the UNRWA Commissioner-General to abruptly terminate the contracts of 12 staff members, whom Israel accused of involvement in the attacks on October 7th. This would undoubtedly be considered a neutrality breach and perhaps even a criminal act.
From our inside sources, we’ve learned that the Commissioner-General of UNRWA instructed his team to announce the termination of those 12 staff members precisely at the same time as the International Court of Justice’s session on Friday, 26 January, which was passing an Order against Israel. The calculated timing aimed to soften the blow of the order from ICJ on Israeli authorities. The UNRWA CG put a 24-hour hold on his Communications Department following his statement.
“The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October. I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay. Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.”
Some violations should be highlighted in the Commissioner-General’s statement.
First, a disturbing fact is how the Commissioner-General seemingly took instructions from the Israeli authorities. This act contravenes the standards of conduct set for international civil service. Most importantly, it raises questions about the impartiality expected from international civil servants.
“If the impartiality of the international civil service is to be maintained, international civil servants must remain independent of any authority outside their organization; their conduct must reflect that independence. In keeping with their oath of office, they should not seek nor should they accept instructions from any Government, person or entity external to the organization.”
Despite the UN rules and regulations, the Commissioner-General swiftly ended contracts without launching an investigation, thereby violating the concerned staff’s fundamental right to due process.
The Office of Investigations (OIOS) is put in a tight spot as it can no longer conduct an impartial and lawful investigation. Former staff members are under no obligation to cooperate with the OIOS, making the process even more challenging.
Instead of rushing to terminate their contracts, the Commissioner-General had the option to first suspend the staff without pay, followed by an impartial investigation. His haste in terminating their contracts — even before commencing an investigation — hints at his attempt to appease the Israeli authorities, thereby breaching the standards of impartiality outlined by the International Civil Service’s code of conduct.
It’s important to remember that allegations must be proven and substantiated.
A recent UNRWA judgment issued on 31 December 2023 highlights the eagerness of the Agency to always appease the Israeli authorities by taking disciplinary measures against UNRWA staff regardless of the case’s merits. This case involved a breach of neutrality. The Judge found that the CG imposed a serious miscounted disciplinary measure on an UNRWA staff allegedly because he was a teacher (as reported by the Israeli NGO) when it turned out that he was not one. The UNRWA Tribunal found in favor of the UNRWA staff and reversed the disciplinary measure.
One day after the CG issued his statement on the termination of contracts, Western European countries declared their solidarity by freezing their financial aid to UNRWA. An unwanted consequence or a planned one?
Equally interesting was the reaction of the Secretary-General who expressed his horror at allegations against UNRWA staff. Yet, he has strangely not used the same term to describe the tragic death of 32,000 Palestinians, including the killing and dismemberment of over 13000 children.
Fear? Or sheer hypocrisy?
As to the EU, on the day of the ICJ order on 26 January 2024, it issued a statement reaffirming its continuing support to the International Court of Justice and reminding the parties that ICJ orders were binding and that they must comply with them.
Within days of the ICJ order, the EU took an abrupt U-turn, suspending its funding for UNRWA and demanding a review of all employees. Clearly, concerns for the integrity of their assistance do not match the reality on the ground. To make things stranger, the EU requested a review of all UNRWA employees (30,000 people) to verify that they were not involved in the attacks.
In the span of two days, the majority of Western donors had announced they were freezing funding based on a recycled “40 beheaded babies allegation” unseen by anyone, without any evidence and any sort of investigation into the matter.
Would these countries dare to withhold funds and weapons sale to Israel for the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, UN schools, health clinics and UN shelters in Gaza?
Today, hundreds of aid trucks are deployed at the Rafah border, with Israel blocking the delivery of essential humanitarian aid. The Palestinians wage a battle for survival, while the world watches in silence.
Israel’s recent decision to declare the Kerem Shalom crossing a closed military zone is leading to a deadly famine.
Israel is subjecting Palestinians to forced starvation, and the international community is observing in silence.
It is thus clear that the humanitarian crisis will persist even if funds were not suspended.
The truth is confronting: we’re witnessing an American-Western led production aimed at more than just funds or humanitarian aid.
This narrative seeks to shift focus from the ICJ order and set UNRWA—often synonymously associated with Palestinians—as the scapegoat. If UNRWA is guilty, all Palestinians must be deemed guilty, or so the story goes.
Given these unfounded allegations, the conversation now centers around UNRWA staff being implicated in acts of violence, further dehumanizing entire Palestinian communities and validating their genocide.
The message that Israel wishes to convey is that killing Palestinians is within its rights.
Led by Israel, a new wave of misinformation seeks to shift global narratives away from the injustices meted out to Palestinians. Such a scenario can only engender the opposite of goodwill and further erode the moral leadership of the Global North in the Middle East.
To the Global North we say: UNRWA does not need your funding.
It needs you to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order by requesting Israel to stop its violence, open the humanitarian corridors and stop the bloodshed.
Cutting funding to UNRWA at this critical juncture is nothing less than a brand new Laissez- Passer to prolong the genocide against the Palestinian people.
But one thing is certain: no amount of money will convince the millions of Palestinian refugees to give up their profound and enduring attachment to their homeland.
To the Global North, we say:
Defund as you May, the Right of Return will Never Cease to Exist,
Yesterday, the Secretary-General issued a statement on Gaza that began with a lengthy paragraph that condemned Hamas and highlighted the suffering of the Israeli people in great detail. However, throughout the two-page discourse, the name of Israel was seemingly forgotten, not even a single mention.
The Security Council is occupied by Western powers, which has rendered it paralyzed.
If you believe the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is independent, I invite you to reconsider.
Let’s take the ongoing case of South Africa versus Israel as an example. Instead of letting the Judges preside with objectivity and devoid of political influence, some Western Nations can’t seem to resist tampering. Bracing for a potential ruling favoring Palestine, Germany has jumped the gun and publicly backed Israel, even before the proceedings have concluded.
Just imagine the pressure that Germany’s judge in the ICJ, Georg Nolte, would be under, feeling the weight of his responsibilities and the difficult decisions he must make.
Then there’s the story of the United States. It chose to step away from the mandatory jurisdiction of the court in 1986, following a ruling indicating the US was obligated to pay war reparations to Nicaragua. Notably, the ICJ’s current President, Joan E. Donoghue, hails from the United States.
Donoghue says she does not see herself as a representative of the United States to the court. On the eve of The Hague proceedings, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the genocide allegations “unfounded,” adding, “That’s not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here. “
Then you have France and Australia, who are also currently sitting on the ICJ, and we know their positions too well.
If you think these judges are independent, think again.
The insidious tentacles of racism and discrimination have infiltrated every corner of the United Nations’ work, revealing an alarming surge in recent years.
If you’re seeking a real-life illustration of entrenched discrimination and ingrained racism, consider how UN staff who hail from nations in the Global North interact with those from the Global South. A quick look at this scenario highlights the glaring disparity between staff from the Global North and those from the Global South at the United Nations.
Supporting evidence isn’t hard to find when you dig into the decisions handed down by the United Nations Dispute Tribunal. These rulings paint a worrying picture.
Take, for instance, the recent case of Theunens vs. Secretary-General, UNDT/2023/145. Released just a week ago, its detailed records provide a disturbing glimpse into the pervasive patterns of racism and discrimination that UN staff from the Global South are forced to endure day in and day out.
This judgment relates to a senior Belgian staff member working with UNIFIL. UNIFIL is the UN’s peacekeeping mission, tasked with verifying the retreat of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and aiding the Lebanese Government in reclaiming its crucial authority over the region.
Contained within the UNDT judgment’s hefty 82 pages, is a chilling depiction of rampant racism, discrimination, misconduct, harassment, and a blatant abuse of authority. It’s the alleged wrongdoings of a Belgian senior staff member (Chief of Joint Military Analysis Centre – JMAC), directed at his Lebanese subordinates, that spanned across a disturbing long stretch of 10 years, from 2010 all the way through to 2020.
There seemed to be no effort to rectify this glaring issue.
Allow me to draw your attention to a particularly striking instance of this evident discrimination and prejudice: the prohibition enforced on two native Lebanese staff members, Mr. El-Sibai and Ms. El-Joubeili, by their Belgian superior.
The Belgian Chief strictly forbade them from conversing in their mother tongue, Arabic, while their international counterparts were granted the liberty to communicate in their native languages like German, French, and so on.
Hold that thought if you believe such an event couldn’t possibly involve a United Nations employee. The next one might just raise your eyebrows a bit more.
An incident involving the Belgian Chief of JMAC threw racial prejudices of the Global North under sharp light when he introduced two Lebanese national staff members to his French deputy.
Instead of introducing them by their respective names Mohamed and Christine and recognizing their important roles as research assistants, the Belgian Chief had a shocking habit of introducing them by their religion as “‘Mohamad the Shia Muslim and Christine the Christian’”
Even for someone like me who has worked for 20 years with the UN worldwide, this is difficult to accept and understand.
It seems there’s a jarring reveal of the Global North’s real countenance unveiling nothing less than the epitome of racism.
Discrimination seeping to the very deep of everything.
Mr. El-Sibai the Lebanese national staff testified to the UN Tribunal that the atmosphere under the senior Belgian staff, was “hell” and that the Belgian’s Chief’s behavior was very intimidating,
“as if he was still in the army or as if we were in Guantanamo or prison. For some unknown reason there was always this division—two camps, the Arab speakers and the international colleagues. The Chief preferred to deal with the international colleagues more “than dealing with us.”
A third senior staff witness testified that he left UNIFIL because of the Belgian Chief JMAC and that “he had knocked at all the doors within UNIFIL, and nobody wanted to hear it, including the leadership”.
Dismantling systems of Western oppression, including colonization, is undeniably complex.
When examined by the Judge during the hearing, the Belgian Chief JMAC admitted:
that many military people and especially those, I mean my Deputies from France, they have a view on Lebanon, and they have a view on Christians and they have a view on Muslims, whether we like it or not.”
In echoing his colonial sentiments, he was quoted saying:
“I may be misinformed by my experience, but I think in a country with internal issues, it is difficult for a citizen – not a citizen, but a person from that country to be objective.”
Could it be that the privilege of critical and objective thinking has been bestowed primarily upon those dwelling in the Global North, while it eludes the majority of the remaining world?
The Global North’s objective mind is indeed so evident in its refusal to acknowledge and condemn the 24 hour live broadcast of the atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinian people – a practice shared by countries including Germany, the US, the UK, and Canada.
In her testimony to the Judge, Ms. El-Joubeili, the Lebanese national staff said:
“It was a nightmare to summarize those awful years spent in JMAC. It was a nightmare.
I had to cope with following psychotherapy, which helped me stay strong and not fall into the trap of the harassment, the abuse of authority, the intimidation, discrimination, all those awful bullying…
It was really toxic and unhealthy. It wasn’t at all the environment I was expecting in an international organization as the United Nations…
Nine years we paid from our health–mental health, physical health. Nine years were too long, way too long really.
It is so enraging, so revolting to have to go through all this for that long without being heard. I know these are the worst years of my life. Nine years in JMAC with the Chief are the worst years of my life.”
Essentially, the gripe against the Chief JMAC revolved around his establishment of a work environment that was oppressive, discriminatory and brimming with harassment. Moreover, he wielded his power in an abusive manner.
Every single charge against him checked out; normally, in such circumstances, termination should have been the least disciplinary action.
However, the outcome for the Chief JMAC saw him demoted by just one grade level. Instead of the door being shown to him, he was reassigned to a new role as a senior political affairs officer in the office of UNIFIL’s Head of Mission — the most influential position in UNIFIL.
It seems more like he hit a career advancement jackpot.
Why would a senior staff member, convicted on charges of discrimination, harassment, and abuse of authority, continue to serve with UNIFIL in Lebanon, a highly volatile political battlefield? The answer is right in front of us.
Could it be that he gets to keep his position because he has the advantage of Belgian nationality? Or is it possibly due to the unfortunate reality that the United Nations is indeed internally colonized?
Not yet convinced?
Keep reading to uncover more.
In a recent judgment, the UNRWA Dispute Tribunal upheld management’s decision to terminate a previous Chief of Security Operations and Analysis, cited in the judgment ElMenshawy UNRWA/DT/2023/034. Notably, ElMenshawy hails from the Global South and is an Arab.
His immediate superior, the Director of Security, hailed from the Global North.
Our Arab Chief found himself in hot water, slapped with accusations of:
1) Casting a shadow of doubt on his direct supervisor’s integrity, a gentleman from Britain;
2) Being a source of distress for his co-worker within the Security Department;
3) Curating an environment within the Security Department that can only be described as hostile.
The Arab Chief ElMenshawy found himself abruptly ousted from his position and faced with the stark reality of termination as a disciplinary measure for his actions.
Compare this example to the Belgian Chief, who, for a protracted decade, wielded his power recklessly, intimidated, and discriminated against Arab staff. Was his punishment as harsh? No.
The Belgian Chief was merely demoted and reassigned to provide leadership in the Head of Mission office, a prestigious role. One may wonder about the seeming disparity.
One thing is certain.
To reform the United Nations, it is necessary to decolonize it first.
