UN sexual abuse: more allegations, more bureaucratic process in Secretary General's latest report

"United Nations personnel, including peacekeepers in 10 UN missions around the world, were embroiled in 99 new allegations of sexual exploitation and/or abuse last year-nearly one-quarter more than in 2014, according to the latest edition of an annual report on the ugly issue unveiled by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The substantial uptick after years of a Ban-led 'zero tolerance' campaign against the crimes means, the report blandly states, 'that more needs to be done to reduce the number of allegations, and more importantly, the number of victims affected' -- though the full victim tally is not presented in the 38-page document.

That conclusion will hardly come as a surprise to a growing array of critics that has included some of the UN's own internal investigators, and an independent panel that last December castigated specific UN senior officials for their inaction and even coverup of sexual abuse allegations against non-UN troops under a Security Council mandate in the Central African Republic...

Time and again the critics have decried a "culture of silence" within the world organization over the sexual abuse issue and raised loud demands for reform that so far have never come to fruition..."