The STC report outlines something that has been known and "addressed" as far back as December 2002. A coalition of global aid agencies met in New York in 2002 to draw up guidelines and prevention programs for just this sort of abuse; a larger group reaffirmed their commitment to the guidelines and prevention programs as recently as late 2006. Demonstrably, it has not helped.

Sex crimes are notoriously underreported, and when one throws in the fact that the abusers ARE the enforcers and the protectors, it follows that the victims not only won't report the problem, they have no one to report it to. The creation of a global watchdog agency to police the aid and peacekeeping forces gives a point of contact for the victims, and helps ensure that consequences are swift in coming to the perpetrators of such outrages.

The addition of yet another agency in the global mix siphons off funds that are needed elsewhere and provides no real benefit. While the provision of an ombudsman for the victims is necessary, it would better to have existing law enforcement coordinate the watchdog efforts rather than trying to set up an oversight group. Placing another level of bureaucracy into the mix is of limited help to the victims and may in fact embolden the abusers, since they will not be under the jurisdiction of the locale where they are stationed.

Additionally, one wonders precisely where the staff for this new agency will come from. Global resources for effective policing are already stretched thin and many countries are forced to use their militaries to supplement their civilian policing structures. Thus, the very groups which currently supply the people that are accused of these atrocities will be the groups tapped to provide the oversight. This seems to me to be a case of setting the fox to watch the henhouse, with the caveat here that the hens in question stand an excellent chance of being abused...

I think the reason things are going as they are now is because there's already too much government between the people and the UN already.

more bureaucracy means less accountability, less communications, less effectiveness and more expense and confusion. NO THANK YOU! Just reorganize the existing organization - reduce the levels of chain-of-command, audit everything, to name few....