Types of activities:

Coalition-building to create a sustained campaign for UN reform

• Identify and mobilise experts needed for the coalition (expertise will be needed on international law, specific national legal/political contexts, children's rights, child safeguarding, MHPSS support, advocacy at UNHQ levels, etc).

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• Create an international coalition of lawyers, sexual exploitation and abuse survivors, NGOs, civil society organisations, doctors, MHPSS experts, activists, academics and journalists to end the sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

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• Organise a kick-off coalition workshop for members to share their respective knowledge, explore avenues for action on accountability, define shared objectives, and present a common civil society position to the UN and relevant TCCs.

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• Design and implement accountability projects which take advantage of and combine the expertise, capacity and geographical location of several coalition partners, in order to overcome the usual barriers to accountability for child sexual abuse by peacekeepers.

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• Hold learning meetings or webinars to share and leverage the specialist knowledge, strategies and strength of each partner (e.g. from Haitian partners on leading paternity suits against peacekeepers).

Research

• Monitor new cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of children in peacekeeping contexts and regularly publish and share data with coalition partners to inform legal advocacy strategies.

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• Analyse data on accountability for allegations of child sexual abuse by peacekeepers that is made available by UN agencies and TCCs, in order to identify trends in reports, convictions and pending cases, for advocacy purposes.

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• Create an interactive map as a public campaigning and advocacy tool which would facilitate follow-up on the status of allegations and pending prosecution cases.

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• Document continued barriers to accountability for SEA against children in peacekeeping contexts as part of coordinated monitoring and evaluation of activities conducted by coalition members to assess progress towards their stated objectives.

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• Expose the impact of sexual abuse on children by coordinating a study from medical, mental health and psychosocial experts, and use it for advocacy purposes.

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Strategic litigation

• Document new cases of child sexual exploitation and abuse through lawyers, doctors and national civil society organisations in the coalition.

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• Identify the strongest cases and jurisdictions for strategic litigation by:

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  • Consulting survivors and their relatives to identify their priorities and the actions that they would be willing to take (petitions, private advocacy, media work, legal action, etc.) to pursue accountability;

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  • Consulting national partners to assess their willingness and capacity to support accountability efforts through strategic litigation including by pursuing connected policy reforms at the government level;

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  • Mobilising coalition members to build legal teams to litigate the cases, including by facilitating linkages between selected lawyers in TCCs and host countries.

• Pursue holistic, strategic litigation cases combining legal work with effective advocacy, media and communications initiatives from various members of the coalition (see below activities under “Advocacy”).

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• Apply a survivor-centred and children’s rights compliant approach to strategic litigation cases, including providing assistance and support throughout the case, helping complainants make informed decisions while guaranteeing their safety and confidentiality and respect of their needs and wishes.

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• Explore other legal avenues for accountability including undertaking cross-jurisdiction civil cases, filing complaints to regional or international human rights mechanisms, seeking judicial reviews for TCC decisions not to prosecute, and litigating against TCCs themselves – when they fail to prosecute cases of peacekeeper sexual abuse against children.

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Advocacy

• Launch a global campaign on activism against child sexual abuse by UN personnel, using the example of “16 days of activism against gender-based violence”, with various coalition members pushing for different legal and policy reforms at UN and TCC levels (e.g. training OIOS investigation teams; or establishing reporting mechanisms that are independent from UN peacekeeping operations).

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• Organise a round table with key UN actors and Member States to present the coalition’s strategy for systemic change at UN and TCC levels, and start dialogue on this issue. This could be convened by a friendly state (e.g. the Canadian Mission to the UN).

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• Advocate for key policy reforms to be discussed in the next Open Debate for UNSC Resolution 2272, by applying pressure on the UNSG, the Under-Secretary on Peace Operations, and key Member States.

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• Combine complementary advocacy initiatives from different coalition members to achieve a selected change within a specific UN institution or TCC government: e.g. a mixture of ‘naming and shaming’ tactics and more collaborative engagement (or technical assistance) targeting key UN officials with our policy objectives. Individual organisations would use different strategies, and build on working together in a more comprehensive manner to target the same actors.

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• Roll out in-country awareness-raising initiatives through local coalition partners: for example, a campaign “caravan” could criss-cross the country with local civil society, lawyers, journalists to kick-start the process of empowering communities through interactive activities informing them of their rights.

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• Work with journalists to raise awareness about the issue and create more pressure for change at the UN and TCC levels: publish op-eds on the work of the coalition in key national and international media; write press releases following relevant events in countries with peacekeeping missions; and produce frequent social media posts for key dates and major achievements towards our objectives.