Uvira, 27 August 2015 – From Monday 24 through Thursday 27 August 2015, staff members of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC were sensitized on the United core values and standards, fight against sexual exploitation and abuse as well as harassment and other forms of misconduct to avoid, in order to preserve the United Nations reputation and image.

It was during a training given by the Conduct and Discipline Unit (CDU-Bukavu). The training is part of the routine activities the Conduct and Discipline Unit undertakes within the framework of its mandate.

But at this particular junction when there is much talk about sexual abuse involving peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, and following a clear message issued by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on “zero tolerance” addressed to all the Peacekeeping Missions across the world, this training has come at a timely moment.

In DRC, MONUSCO chief, who is the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, Martin Kobler undertook, a few days ago, a sensitization and information sharing tour to the civilian and military staff of the Mission in a bid to fight sexual exploitation and abuses; he respectively visited Kisangani, Bunia, Beni, Kamango, Bukavu and Goma.

For four days on end, MONUSCO-Uvira staff as well as the sub-contractors were sensitized on the rules and code of good conduct as well as he core values upheld by the UN staff.

Ban Ki-Moon said, the United Nations are in countries that welcome their presence and therefore in keeping with its mandate, it has to protect the populations but not to exploit nor abuse them.

As a result, the Conduct and Discipline Unit of MONUSCO-Bukavu met with the different categories of the staff (military, police, civilians, local staff, international staff and casual workers), firstly to remind them that they are part of the community of the peacekeepers and therefore there are a number of principles and values they should promote.

Another specific objective of this interactive training was to get the staff to keep a sound working environment through refraining from any conduct contrary to the core values of the United Nations, namely integrity, professionalism and respect for diversities. A working environment free from all forms of stress where people respect each other, free from harassment (moral or sexual), without discrimination on racious, religious lines or sexually based.

The training was said to be useful by the majority of the participants, in spite of the time constraints.

Dieudonné Matamba, head of the local staff association said: “such trainings are very useful to us insofar as some of our colleagues joined the Mission recently and need to be aware of those requirements; we were updated on the code of good conduct, even though we mainly focused on sexual abuse. We would therefore like to have similar trainings regularly, say at least once a year.”.

Jean-Tobie Okala