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UN Peacekeepers not keeping the peace

Sunday 10pm FRONTLINE - PBS documentary series that explores news investigations from award-winning journalism team.  UN SEX ABUSE SCANDAL - An investigation of sex abuse by United Nations peacekeepers in the world's conflict zones. The film traces allegations from Bosnia to Congo to the Central African Republic, with firsthand accounts from survivors, witnesses, and officials.https://youtu.be/mUKmTTIX1NI Over the past 15 years, the United Nations (UN) has recorded more than 1,700 allegations of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers in conflict zones around the world — from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kosovo, and from East Timor to Haiti. In UN Sex Abuse Scandal, FRONTLINE investigates how and why the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers has persisted despite the UN’s efforts to stamp it out – and why the UN has a record of only 53 uniformed peacekeepers and one international civilian peacekeeper being sent to prison for sexual offenses.“Though the UN’s new secretary general has vowed to make combatting sexual abuse and exploitation a top priority, we’ve found that not only is it still happening — but that many victims hadn’t been contacted by the UN, and that criminal accountability for the perpetrators remains elusive,” says correspondent Ramita Navai, an award-winning author and journalist.  In UN Sex Abuse Scandal, the film explores the failures and constraints of the UN — which has the authority to fire people, but not prosecute them — and the role of member states in dealing with the problem.

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Mia Laurenzo is a 30-year veteran of public television in Miami. She began her career learning every aspect of video production. Currently she is a writer, producer, on-air host and promotions coordinator for TV, radio and the web. Her experiences include producing for a series, special events and historical documentaries. As a native Floridian, she is a perfect fit for South Florida's Storyteller Station, WLRN. She has produced award winning, nationally distributed documentaries like Journey to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade where one year she followed a high school band and a clown as they prepared for the big day and the next year, she had the privilege of being a clown herself. Previously, she produced Weird Florida: On the Road Again, a sequel to the highly successful show Weird Florida: Roads Less Traveled, where the cast and crew travel over 1,500 miles searching the Sunshine State’s weirdest and wackiest places. On a more serious note and what she considers to be her most important work, she produced Out of Darkness, Into Light, a documentary on child sexual abuse,which delved into the lives of three adult survivors, a show in which she was awarded her first of two Emmys.