© Reuters / Annika AF KlerckerSweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom
"Det skader hele FNs kreditværdighed når noget som dette sker. Man kunne stille spørgsmål ved behandlingen af sagen i Geneve og måden de har behandlet Anders Kompass," fortæller Wahlstrom den svenske kanal SVT, ifølge the local.
Den svenske udenrigsminister tilføjede at hun har modtaget opbakning i at åbne en uafhængig undersøgelse ud i hvordam Kompass's sag blev håndteret af FN. Kompass var oprindeligt suspenderet d. 17. April, før bandlysning blev løftet d. 6 Maj.
"Det er godt at der vil være en uafhængig og forhåbentligt hurtig undersøgelse af hvad der egentligt skete. Jeg talte med nogle af deltagerne [ved mødet i Johannesburg] der også sagde at de ville lave en udtalelse omkring sagen, De der har deltaget med troppernes fredsbevarende tiltag og politi indsats bliver nød til at vise at de tager denne slags signaler alvorligt," tilføjede hun.
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The whistleblower's suspension was eventually lifted following a UN Dispute Tribunal, which stated:"The harm done to the applicant's reputation will be irreparable and could not be adequately compensated at a later stage."
Kompass, a senior UN aid worker who has been involved in humanitarian work for over than 30 years, was suspended after passing documents to French prosecutors, He took the action because the UN had failed to do anything.
The damning report alleged that French soldiers had raped and sodomized starving and homeless boys in the Central African Republic, some as young as nine.
French peacekeeping forces were supposed to be protecting children at a center for the internally displaced near the capital Bangui, when the abuse allegedly happened, between December 2013 and June 2014.
A member of staff from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and a specialist from UNICEF interviewed the children between May and June last year. Some of the boys were able to give good descriptions of individual soldiers who abused them.
A UN tribunal subsequently ordered Kompass, who works for the (OHCHR), to be put on administrative leave, which led to the Swede being suspended from his duties on April 17.
The UN tribunal said Kompass had received a copy of the report in July 2014 and brought the issue up a week later with a French diplomat. The Swede added that he had spoken to his bosses about the report and passed a copy on to the French authorities on August 7, 2014.
The UN hit out at the human rights worker, saying its office was only made aware of the leak on March 6.
"We remain extremely concerned that copies are circulating of the confidential unredacted preliminary notes of the interviews with the children," the spokesman said.
Bea Edwards from the US-based Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, blasted the UN for what is little more than a witch-hunt against someone who sought to protect children.
"We have represented many whistleblowers in the UN system over the years and in general the more serious the disclosure they make the more ferocious the retaliation. Despite the official rhetoric, there is very little commitment at the top of the organization to protect whistleblowers and a strong tendency to politicize every issue no matter how urgent."
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