CAPE TOWN, May 29 (Xinhua) -- A growing and alarming trend in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) among South African peacekeepers calls upon commanders to ensure that discipline be enforced, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said Monday.
"We must all hang our heads in shame that some of our soldiers have been found guilty of SEA," Mapisa-Nqakula said at the De Brug Army Base outside Bloemfontein, Free State Province, in a speech marking the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers which falls on May 29.
These matters involved South African contingents in peace missions, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), said the minister.
According to figures provided by the minister, seven SEA cases involving South African peacekeepers were registered in 2015, five in 2016, and three at end of March 2017 since the start of the calendar year.
"One case of SEA is one case too many," Mapisa-Nqakula stressed.
The reverberations it causes throughout the contingent and image it gives South Africa reversed the gains the country has made over the entire period of almost two decades it has been involved in peace missions, the minister said.
"This calls upon commanders to ensure that there is discipline enforced, and we are taking this matter very seriously ... to a point of tabling extensive amendments to the Military Discipline Bill during this year," she said.
During a visit to the South African contingent in Goma, the DRC in early March, the minister sharply raised her intolerance about SEA and made the point that all must be done to prevent it where and when it happens, that serious appropriate steps must be taken against the perpetrators.
South Africa has deployed more than 3,000 peacekeepers to contribute to peace and stability in Africa, among them more than 1,000 in eastern DRC as part of a UN intervention brigade trying to bring peace to the conflict-torn region.
The peace mission has been haunted by sex abuse scandals. Last year, the UN said it received 44 allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers and staff in its missions, there of them being South African soldiers.
A UN report has revealed that South African soldiers are the worst sexual offenders on UN peacekeeping missions.
