Must-read stories: UN sex abuse, El Faro sinking share Beat of the Week honors
By Paisley Dodds; Jason Dearen
The stories could not be more different. One revealed that United Nations peacekeepers had been accused of thousands of instances of sexual abuse over 12 years. The other recounted the last hours of a doomed freighter and its crew, as they sailed into a hurricane.
But both of these AP stories – by Paisley Dodds and Jason Dearen, respectively – drew extraordinary notice, captivating readers in a busy news week. And in a departure from usual practice, the two contrasting stories, a hard-hitting investigation and a powerful narrative, are being recognized as co-winners of the Beat of the Week.
Martine Gestime 32, wipes her tears during an interview in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 11, 2016. Gestime said she was raped by a Brazilian peacekeeper in 2008 and became pregnant with her son, Ashford. Unable to afford school for him, she relies on him to beg for food. “He tells me all the time that he doesn’t have a father or mother who can look after him.” – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
Martine Gestime, 32, holds up a picture of her son, Ashford, during an interview in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 11, 2016. Gestime said she was raped by a Brazilian peacekeeper in 2008 and became pregnant with Ashford. They live in a cramped two-room dwelling she shares with six other people in a Port-au-Prince slum. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
A Brazilian U.N. peacekeeper opens a gate at the U.N. base in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 16, 2016. According to an AP investigation, some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation were reported in Haiti between 2004 and 2016. The allegations involved U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel from various countries. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
Janila Jean, 18, carries her daughter as she walks to her friend’s house before an interview in Jacmel, Haiti, Aug. 15, 2016. Jean said she was a 16-year-old virgin when a U.N. peacekeeper from Brazil lured her to the U.N. compound two years earlier with a smear of peanut butter on bread, then raped her at gunpoint and left her pregnant. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
Janila Jean, 18, sits in front of a friend’s house as her daughter cries during an interview in Jacmel, Haiti, Aug. 15, 2016. Jean said she was a 16-year-old virgin when a U.N. peacekeeper from Brazil raped her at gunpoint and left her pregnant. Jean says there are times when she thinks about killing her baby. “I just cry most days,” she said. “Some days, I imagine strangling my daughter to death. It’s hard to see her face as a reminder of what happened, but it’s also hard not knowing anything about who the father is.” – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
The remains of Habitation Leclerc in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 16, 2017. In the ruins, a group of abandoned children found shelter but were barely surviving. Exploiting that desperation, U.N. peacekeepers lured them into a child sex ring. In August 2007, the U.N. received complaints of “suspicious interactions” between Sri Lankan soldiers and Haitian children, launching an investigation. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
Marie-Ange Haitis, 40, stands with her daughter, Samantha, at their home in Leogane, Haiti, Aug. 17, 2016. Haitis says she met a Sri Lankan commander in December 2006 and he soon began making nighttime visits to her house. “It wasn’t rape, but it wasn’t exactly consensual, either,” she said. “I felt like I didn’t have a choice.” Haitis says Samantha has started asking more questions about her father. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
Lovely Harasme 26, sits in front of her mother’s house in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 11, 2016. She says she was one of several women who worked as prostitutes for Sri Lankan peacekeepers with the U.N. – AP PHOTO / DIEU NALIO CHERY
U.N. peacekeepers from Brazil gather at the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 11, 2011. According to an AP investigation, some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation were reported in Haiti between 2004 and 2016. The allegations involved U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel from various countries. – AP PHOTO / EDUARDO VERDUGO
Marie Deschamps, head of a panel reviewing United Nations response to allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers, listens during a press conference discussing new revelations of children sexually abused by peacekeepers in the Central Republic of Africa, April 12, 2017, in New York. – AP PHOTO / BEBETO MATTHEWS
In the aftermath of allegations of sexual misdeeds against United Nations peacekeepers in the Central Africa Republic and Congo, the AP decided to quantify what had been going on. How many cases were pending? What kind of data was available?
Dodds built a database with all the information at hand, amounting eventually to nearly 2,000 allegations of abuse.
Dodds, a London-based investigative reporter, set out to collect the facts. After reviewing reports going back 12 years, she built a database with all the information at hand, which amounted, eventually, to nearly 2,000 allegations of abuse against peacekeepers and other U.N. personnel.
Dodds pored over the data with AP colleagues Krista Larson in Africa and Katy Daigle in India. While others traveled to Congo and Sri Lanka to investigate further, Dodds set off for Haiti. There, she developed sources who pointed to evidence that the U.N. peacekeeper system is in crisis. One source slipped her a report on a sex ring that victimized children as young as 12. While 134 peacekeepers were identified as participating in the ring over three years, none was ever jailed.
Newspapers around the world ran the story on front pages with photos by Dieu Nalio Chery. It was a top story on AP Mobile. On Twitter,one post praising the all-formats piece was shared 3,000 times.
And the next day,during a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to shut the Haiti peacekeeping mission,U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley mentioned Dodds by name, quoting at length from the story. She said countries must be held accountable or barred from peacekeeping duty.
“What do we say to these kids? Did these peacekeepers keep them safe?” she asked.
Rochelle Hamm holds the hard hat of her husband, Frank, at her home in Jacksonville, Fla., March 14, 2017. Frank Hamm was a new helmsman on the freighter El Faro when it sank in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1, 2015. All 33 crew members were lost; their bodies were never recovered. Hamm’s helmet was found on Ormond Beach, Fla., in December 2015, two months after he disappeared. – AP PHOTO / GARY McCULLOUGH
Frank Hamm, a new helmsman on the freighter El Faro, is shown in a framed photograph at the home of his widow, Rochelle Hamm, in Jacksonville, Fla., March 14, 2017. As the cargo freighter went down in a hurricane on Oct. 1, 2015, the ship’s data recorder captured his final words. “My feet are slipping! I’m goin’ down!” he cried after the crew was ordered to abandon ship. “I’M A GONER!” he shouts. – ROCHELLE HAMM via AP
Danielle Randolph, shown in an undated selfie photo made available by her mother, was a second mate on the freighter El Faro which sank in Hurricane Joaquin in the Bahamas, Oct. 1, 2015. Randolph should have had quick access to life jackets on the freighter’s bridge. Hearing that she did not, says Brian Young, chief investigator for the NTSB, filled him with “disgust.” “That definitely raised a flag for us,” he told The AP. – LAURI RANDOLPH via AP
The stern of the sunken freighter El Faro is shown in an undated video image released April 26, 2016, by the National Transportation Safety Board. The El Faro and its crew struggled for survival – unaware that their course was taking them directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin. All 33 crew members were killed when the ship sank, Oct. 1, 2015. – NTSB via AP
Relatives of El Faro crew members stand with photographs of their loved ones during a break in a U.S. Coast Guard investigative hearing in Jacksonville, Fla., Feb. 10, 2017. The 790-foot freighter heading from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, Puerto Rico, sailed into the eye of Hurricane Joaquin near the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015 and sank, killing all 33 crew members. – BOB SELF / THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION via AP
The navigation bridge structure of the sunken freighter El Faro is shown at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas in an undated video image released April 26, 2016, by the National Transportation Safety Board. All 33 crew members were lost when the El Faro lost propulsion as it sailed directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin, Oct. 1, 2015. – NTSB via AP
The cargo ship El Faro, loaded with containers, is shown in an undated photo provided by TOTE Maritime. The ship sank in Hurricane Joaquin in the Bahamas, Oct. 1, 2015. All 33 crew members were lost. – TOTE MARITIME via AP
The gripping,intimately-told story of the freighter El Faro’s sinking,meanwhile,came of Dearen’s dedicated coverage of U.S. Coast Guard hearings into the 2015 disaster. All 33 crew members died in what was the worst maritime calamity involving a U.S.-flagged vessel since 1983.
Dearen,AP’s Gainesville,Florida,correspondent,monitored the hearings for weeks,filing spot stories. But he saved material for a longer piece. He read through nearly 10,000 pages in the National Transportation Safety Board investigative docket, and built relationships with relatives of El Faro crew members.
The motherlode was the transcript of the crew’s conversations, which were recorded by the ship’s black box … right up to the last recorded words of the captain to a terrified crewman.
The motherlode of material,though,was the transcript of the crew’s conversations,which were recorded by the ship’s black box. Dearen used clues in the transcript,interviews with relatives and information from testimony and documents to flesh out the drama of the El Faro’s last hours, right up to the last recorded words of the captain to a terrified crew member.
“IT’S TIME TO COME THIS WAY!” he shouted, as El Faro slipped beneath the sea.
The mainbar appeared on the front pages of the Miami Herald and dozens of other papers. Sidebars on the investigators and the widow of a crewmember and her quest to improve maritime safety drew many readers to the main story. For days,the tale of the El Faro was the most engaged story on the AP Mobile app,grabbing readers’ attention for an unheard-of average of more than four minutes. Forty percent of readers read all 4,000 words.
Angela Fritz of The Washington Post’s Weather Gang was transfixed. The world knows just what happened to the El Faro and its lost crew,she wrote, “thanks to a must-read story from the Associated Press’s Jason Dearen.”
For two unforgettable and powerful stories – delivered only by the AP – Dearen and Dodds each win $500 prizes.
