The UN sex scandal worsens

In another body blow to UN credibility, WaPo reports widespread sexual abuse in many UN missions.

The United Nations is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct by U.N. personnel in Burundi, Haiti, Liberia and elsewhere, which is complicating the organization's efforts to contain a sexual abuse scandal that has tarnished its Nobel Prize-winning peacekeepers in Congo.

The allegations indicate that a series of measures the United Nations has taken in recent years have failed to eliminate a culture of sexual permissiveness that has plagued its far-flung peacekeeping operations over the last 12 years. But senior U.N. officials say they have signaled their seriousness by imposing new reforms and forcing senior U.N. military commanders and officials to step down if they do not curb such practices.

Given that the UN's mission is to rescue people who have been oppressed or are under stress through various causes, the sexual exploitation of these people is especially reprehensible and should be condemned in the most certain terms. That it is not is damning not only of the UN but of all the involved nations.