Description
In 2014, a whistleblower in the UN leaked a report that detailed incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by French soldiers deployed to Central African Republic as part of Opération Sangaris. The report initiated a series of investigations – both by the French authorities against the soldiers as well as by the UN against its whistleblower – as well as diplomatic efforts to portray any wrongdoing as the actions of a few deviant individuals among an otherwise benign and legitimate intervention. Despite overwhelming evidence that violence and abuse took place, the legal process that followed ultimately failed to hold any individual accountable. This paper asks: how can it be that no justice was enacted even though it was established that crimes were committed? It examines this question through a feminist abolitionist lens, arguing that a carceral approach to sexual exploitation and abuse cannot offer repair for the harms committed. A carceral system protects the privileged, while the marginalised are rendered unable to claim justice by to the same systems of oppression that made them vulnerable to violation in the first place.
