via FoxNews...
The U.N. has been accused of widespread pedophilia among its peacekeeping agents.
In its report, Save the Children UK makes three key recommendations: establishing a way for people to report abuse locally, creating an international watchdog agency this year to deal with the problem, and setting up a program to deal with the underlying causes of child abuse.
Tom Cargill, Africa program manager at London's Chatham House, said there is no "magic bullet" that can solve the problem quickly.
He said the United Nations is beset by a number of bureaucratic and legal problems when it comes to investigating abuses committed by peacekeepers.
"The governance of U.N. missions has always been a problem because soldiers from individual states are only beholden to those states," he said.
"So it's difficult for the U.N. to pursue charges and difficult for the U.N. to investigate them. Information is sketchy but we know there are tremendous abuses in war zones and in complex emergencies."
Will the media react to the U.N. the same way it reacted to the scandal within our own Church?
Will people argue that the U.N. should allow its agents to give up celibacy, maybe even get married? Will people call for the Secretary General to be extradited to every country where the sexual abuse of minors occurred?
I will grant that the major difference is that Church officials shuffled priests, whereas the article above does not mention the U.N. doing the same. However, the U.N.'s measures don't seem much more effective. My main point, however, is that child abuse is a human problem that infects every institution where adults are given authority over children. It is not a unique problem to the Church, and, as Tom Cargill points out, there is no "magic bullet" that will make the problem disappear.
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