Watch The Whistleblowers: Inside the UN on BBC Select
For more than 70 years the UN has been at the forefront of work to uphold human rights and promote global peace. The Whistleblowers: Inside the UN looks at what happens when the fixer of the world’s problems is itself faced with allegations of wrongdoing and corruption, as told by insiders with decades of experience working at the world’s top diplomatic institution.
With more than 35,000 staff, and most protected by immunity from local laws once they are employed by the UN, the people in this documentary reveal their first-hand accounts of what happened when they tried to take on the UN’s hierarchy and the organisation’s culture of silence, at great personal cost.
The whistleblowers allege a wide range of sexual abuse and corruption across many UN agencies, including The Human Rights Council, UN Development Programme, the World Food Programme and UNAIDS. Their stories reveal a culture of untouchability that reaches the highest levels of the organisation.