Authored by Lily Martin, 25/02/2026
Stories of young women in post-conflict zones illustrate how UN policies designed to protect individuals from sexual exploitation and abuse can inadvertently restrict their agency, limiting their ability to make difficult choices in situations of extreme vulnerability. As International Women’s Day approaches, it is crucial to adopt a critical perspective on such policies and shed light on the complex realities they may unintentionally obscure.
Since their inception, United Nations peacekeeping missions have faced persistent challenges related to sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by deployed personnel (Westendorf, 2023). In response to scandals in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including cases in West Africa and Bosnia-Herzegovina involving transactional sex, sexual slavery, and trafficking, the UN adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy through the 2003 Bulletin on Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Westendorf, 2023). This bulletin prohibits sexual activity with minors, any exchange of money, goods, or services for sex, and relationships with aid beneficiaries, framing such conduct as a grave violation of the UN’s mandate. While these measures sought to restore institutional legitimacy and protect vulnerable populations, critics argue that their moral absolutism oversimplifies the complex sexual economies emerging in post-conflict settings (Otto, 2007).
Feminist scholars such as Diane Otto and Jasmine-Kim Westendorf contend that zero-tolerance policies conflate all forms of transactional sex with coercion, denying women’s agency and obscuring the structural poverty driving survival strategies (Westendorf, 2023). By pathologising sex as inherently exploitative, the policy imposes a conservative, heteronormative morality reminiscent of colonial “civilising” discourses, reinforcing gender hierarchies rather than dismantling them. Furthermore, its enforcement mechanisms, largely delegated to troop-contributing states, rarely deliver accountability, prioritising institutional image over human rights (Otto, 2007).
Rethinking Sexual Violence and Exploitation in UN Peacekeeping
“If I go and see the soldiers at night and sleep with them they sometimes give me food, maybe a banana or a cake. I have to do it with them because there is nobody to care, nobody else to protect Joseph, except me. He is all I have and I must look after him” – Faela, a 13-year-old mother, Burundi – (Holt, BBC News, 2004)
“I am sad about it. But I needed the dollars. I can’t go far because of the militias. Who will feed me?” – Yvette, 14, Congo – (Wax, Washington Post Foreign Service, 2005)
“I know everyone is saying it’s bad; But why don’t they come and give us jobs? Tell me, who will feed me?” – Chantal, 17, Congo – (Wax, Washington Post Foreign Service, 2005)
The testimonies of these three adolescent girls navigating post‑conflict poverty illuminate the blurred boundaries between sexual exploitation, survival strategies, and constrained agency. Their words reveal not only material desperation but also a form of rational negotiation within scarcity: exchanging sex for food or security in contexts where peacekeepers hold total economic and social power. These narratives challenge the neat moral binaries implied by the UN’s Bulletin on Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (2003), where sexual violence, exploitation, and any transactional intimacy are treated as fundamentally identical (Otto, 2007). The following discussion unpacks three crucial concepts, sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and survival sex, to show how over‑inclusive definitions and a moralised view of sexuality obscure women’s agency while failing to confront the structural causes of abuse.
Sexual Violence and the Problem of Definition
Under the Secretary‑General’s Bulletin, sexual violence encompasses all non‑consensual sexual acts, from harassment to assault, typically grounded in abuse of power. While this broad framing aims to safeguard vulnerable populations, it collapses the distinctions between coercion and constrained choice. Feminist theorist Diane Otto argues that gender inequality underlies both the prevalence and the interpretation of sexual violence; yet, she warns against defining women solely through victimhood. For Otto, empowerment arises from acknowledging women’s decision‑making, even within adverse circumstances, which the Bulletin’s rigid framework negates (Otto, 2007).
Jasmine‑Kim Westendorf similarly critiques the policy’s vagueness and its enforcement gaps, noting that peacekeepers’ accountability depends on troop‑contributing countries that often shield offenders from prosecution. More fundamentally, Westendorf highlights the conceptual confusion between abuse and mutually negotiated relationships. By framing all sexual contact as exploitative, the UN undermines local women’s autonomy and erases the nuances of consent, age, and interpersonal agency (Westendorf, 2023). This conflation reflects what Otto calls “sexual negativity,” a persistent discomfort with women’s sexual expression that casts heterosexual acts as inherently injurious (Otto, 2007).
Sexual Exploitation and Structural Inequality
The Bulletin’s definition of sexual exploitation as “any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another” (UN Bulletin, Section 1, 2003), extends moral suspicion even to ostensibly consensual relationships. While this broad scope seeks to close gaps in accountability, it risks pathologising all interactions between international staff and local populations. In practice, allegations of exploitation far outnumber those of assault, within a humanitarian economy where staff may exchange goods, jobs, or cash for sex. The material asymmetry is undeniable: peacekeepers earning hundreds of dollars confront civilians struggling for daily survival. But to treat all such exchanges as equivalent to rape, feminist scholars argue, erases the diverse experiences and forms of negotiation that persist amid inequality (Otto, 2007).
This moral flattening perpetuates a paternalistic view of protection. Rather than challenging the economic and logistical systems that create dependence, underfunded aid programs, precarious livelihoods, and militarised masculinity, the UN enacts prohibition without remediation. Women who strategically engage in transactional sex often reject the label of “victim,” recognizing the transactions as one of the few available means of subsistence or social mobility (Westendorf, 2023). The policy’s heteronormative presumptions, moreover, criminalise certain forms of intimacy while reinforcing conservative gender hierarchies that privilege institutional reputation over human rights (Otto, 2007).
Survival Sex and the Boundaries of Agency
“Survival sex” refers to exchanges of sex for food, shelter, or minimal security in contexts where alternative livelihoods are scarce or absent (Otto, 2007). These economies arise from extreme wealth disparities: a peacekeeper’s disposable income can exceed a local worker’s monthly earnings many times over. Though the conditions are profoundly unjust, survival sex involves decision‑making constrained by circumstance rather than outright coercion (Otto, 2007). Otto and Westendorf both emphasise that this space of negotiation, however limited, marks a critical distinction from sexual offences such as rape, forced prostitution, and sexual slavery.
The UN’s zero‑tolerance framework denies this distinction, conflating all sexual commerce with abuse. This erases women’s residual dignity, their capacity to act within structural limits, and their nuanced understandings of power. Moreover, equating survival sex with sexual violence may paradoxically discourage reporting of genuine abuse, as local women fear stigma or loss of income. As commentators have observed, the policy thus becomes “a case of white people regulating the sexual mores of brown people,” replicating colonial patterns of moral authority rather than dismantling exploitation (Westendorf, 2023).
Beyond Moralism toward Human Rights
Reconsidering sexual exploitation through a feminist lens demands moving beyond institutional self‑protection toward structural accountability. A rights‑based response would distinguish coercive abuse from consensual exchange, link prevention to economic empowerment, and confront poverty as the engine driving survival sex. True protection requires recognising sexual agency without condoning exploitation, understanding that dignity and dependence can coexist. The voices of Faela, Yvette, and Chantal attest not only to suffering but also to endurance and pragmatism, reminding policymakers that justice for women in peacekeeping contexts lies not in prohibiting intimacy, but in transforming the conditions that leave it as their only option.
The UN’s zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions, while born of urgent necessity, reveals profound limitations when scrutinised through a feminist lens. Its moral absolutism, rooted in sexual negativity and rigid universals, imposes external values that erode the agency of local women, conflating survival strategies with inherent victimhood. A binary framing also often overlooks the spectrum of consent, power, and circumstance, from consensual adult relationships to survival sex amid poverty (Otto, 2007).
A reflective assessment demands transcending individual accountability toward systemic reform. Otto and Westendorf expose how the policy sidesteps root causes like grinding economic inequality, gendered labour exclusion, and colonial legacies of moral regulation. Prioritising poverty alleviation, through funded micro-enterprise programs or cash transfers, alongside gender equality initiatives, would empower women beyond stigma. Intersectional vulnerabilities, compounded by migration, ethnicity, and youth, thrive in survival economies; policies must thus integrate anti-trafficking enforcement with labour rights and community health services (Otto, 2007).
Holistically, reform requires nuanced consent frameworks that distinguish coercion from agency, coupled with independent investigations bypassing troop-contributing states. Concrete examples abound: in post-mission Haiti, local cooperatives reduced transactional sex by 40% via women-led vocational training; in South Sudan, joint UN-NGO mentorships challenged “boys will be boys” cultures among troops (Westendorf, 2023). Collaboration with local entities, women’s councils, and faith leaders ensures culturally attuned solutions, fostering autonomy over paternalism (Westendorf, 2023).
Ultimately, true human rights protection lies in dismantling exploitation’s drivers: wealth disparities fueling demand, aid models breeding dependence, and gender norms scripting vulnerability. By embracing complexity and protection without erasure of dignity, peacekeeping can evolve from institutional shield to genuine liberator, honouring the pragmatism of voices like Faela’s while prosecuting undeniable abuses. This shift promises not just compliance, but justice.
Sources
Otto, D., ‘Making Sense of Zero Tolerance Policies in Peacekeeping Sexual Economies’, in V.E. Munro and C.F. Stychin (eds), Sexuality and the Law (Routledge-Cavendish 2007) 259.
Westendorf, J-K., ‘A Problem of Rules: Sexual Exploitation and UN Legitimacy’ (2023) 67 International Studies Quarterly 1.
UN. 2003. “Secretary-General’s Bulletin: Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse ST/SGB/2003/13.” https://docs.un.org/en/ST/SGB/2003/13
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