If there is one bastion of bureaucracy, it is the United Nations. Embarrassing as it is that the organization is deluged with sexual harassment complaints within its own ranks, this agency that is mandated to protect human rights across the globe, has an arbitrary and unfair system of handling its internal sexual harassment cases.
The processing of such cases crawls for years. Victims cannot access investigation documents to help them in their appeals. In some cases, women who filed sexual harassment complaints found their employment contracts no longer renewed. The agency has not only shown debilitating bureaucracy but apparent discrimination as well.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admits the failure of the adjudication process, and in responding to women’s rights group Equality Now, said, “I fully share your concerns regarding sexual harassment and sex discrimination. This scourge remains a high priority issue for me.”
The United Nations has marked July 1 as the start of revamp of its internal justice system that will create new standards to be applied to all 60,000 people that comprise the agency’s global staff.
The aim of the new system is to make it more independent and professional in resolving internal workplace disputes such as sexual harassment cases. To be noted is the fact that most UN managers have diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution or civil litigation, but this does not apply within the UN’s internal justice system.
