The uselessness of the UN gets displayed yet again as a “human rights worker” at Turtle Bay got arrested for carrying child pornography through an airport.  The arrest of Clarence Dias provides only the latest example of the sexual exploitation of children by UN affiliates, although the first time such behavior has been caught in the US:

A high-ranking human rights worker with ties to the United Nations was nabbed at Kennedy Airport Tuesday with kiddie porn in his suitcase, officials said.

Clarence Dias, 65, president of the International Center for Law in Development, whose offices are located at the UN, had the smut in his carry-on bag as he passed through security on his way to a flight bound for Bangkok, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

Transportation Security Administration officials doing a random bag check around 8:20a.m. allegedly found a DVD whose cover featured an apparently underage nude boy and an adult male in Dias’ handbag, prosecutors said.

The video’s title – “Winner Pub Pattaya” – apparently refers to a beach resort in Thailand, authorities said. There were also other lewd photographs in the bag, authorities said.

Dias – who holds a doctorate in law from Bombay University and Cornell Law School and has taught at Boston College of Law – claimed the porn was for research, authorities said.

Ah, yes … research!  Perhaps Dias wanted to research the endemic sexual exploitation of children by UN peacekeeping troops in Africa.  After all, we have had independent reports from several UN peacekeeping operations of troops and UN personnel using aid to force women and children into sexual acts for their survival, starting in 2004 in the Congo.  By 2005, that list included Burundi, Liberia, and Haiti.  As of yet, the UN has done nothing — at all — to keep its missions from acting as pimps for the pleasure of its troops.

And where was Dias heading?  Not surprisingly, he was on his way to Thailand.  The DVD apparently was Dias’ travelogue.  Thailand has a big child prostitution industry, although they have tried getting tough with sex tourists.  One hopes that they would have caught Dias, but perhaps his status as a UN-affiliated VIP would have given him some protection.

Under any other circumstances, this child-exploitation network would get dismantled.  Since it’s the UN, I doubt that many people will even acknowledge its existence.  One has to wonder how many more pedophiles use the UN for their evil compulsion, and why the voices that claim to speak for the children remain so silent about this organization’s repeated instances of their exploitation.  (via Lawhawk and JWF)

Update: HA reader Dukeameye corrects me on Gary Glitter.  He did time in Vietnam, not Thailand, but Thailand wouldn’t let him leave the airport when he traveled to Bangkok after leaving Vietnam.