South Africa, acknowledged by the UN for adoption of best practices to deal with sexual abuse and exploitation (SEA) in its military, was one of 80 countries along with the European Union which heard misconduct by soldiers was a risk to operational successes of peacekeeping missions.
The UN event on Monday heard of and saw good practices member countries are implementing to cut down and hopefully eliminate SEA. One presentation to the closed event was that of a South African court martial for a SEA offence. Ahead of the event, South Africa’s progressive approach to dealing with SEA in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) both internally and on external deployments such as MONUSCO in DR Congo was acknowledged by the world body.
I’m curious as to where that SANDAF court martial took place. Was it ‘forward’ in the operating zone: in proximity to victims and witnesses, and affording greater awareness of the proceedings by the affected community? There was some discussion along those lines a few years ago.
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