UN peacekeepers' child sex ring left victims, but no arrests

In this Aug. 11, 2016 photo, Martine Gestime 32, wipes her tears during an interview in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Gestime said she was raped by a Brazilian peacekeeper in 2008 and became pregnant with her son, Ashford. Unable to afford school for him, she relies on him to beg for food. "He tells me all the time that he doesn’t have a father or mother who can look after him." (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) (The Associated Press)

In this Aug. 16, 2016 photo, a Brazilian U.N. peacekeeper opens a gate at the U.N. base in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. According to an AP investigation, some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation were reported in Haiti between 2004 and 2016. The allegations involved U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel. Alleged victimizers came from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay and Sri Lanka, according to U.N. data and interviews. More countries may have been involved, but the United Nations only started disclosing alleged perpetrators’ nationalities after 2015. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) (The Associated Press)

This Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 photo shows the remains of Habitation Leclerc in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In the ruins, a group of abandoned children found shelter but were barely surviving. Exploiting that desperation, U.N. peacekeepers lured them into a child sex ring. In August 2007, the U.N. received complaints of “suspicious interactions” between Sri Lankan soldiers and Haitian children, launching an investigation. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) (The Associated Press)

An Associated Press investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel around the world — signaling the crisis is much larger than previously known. The AP found more than 300 of the allegations involved children, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time.

A leaked U.N. internal report also exposed a child sex ring in Haiti involving 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers. Despite overwhelming evidence, no one was jailed for the abuse and exploitation.