"The result of my whistle-blowing was that I lost my employment and career, my pension and all my future security," said Dzuverovic, who worked as a program management officer at Nairobi-based UN Habitat.
If the United Nations hopes to root out mismanagement like that alleged in the $67 billion oil-for-food program for Iraq, it must do a better job of protecting employees like her who expose wrongdoing at the risk of reprisals from the executives they are informing on, staff leaders and outside experts say.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged eight months ago to strengthen whistle-blower protections after a staff survey found a widespread conviction that little was being done to root out unethical behaviour and that staffers who exposed wrongdoing risked reprisals.
The pace of that initiative appears to be picking up amid growing signs of corruption in the oil-for-food program, which let Iraq sell oil and buy civilian goods to soften the impact of UN sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.
Several US congressional committees are looking into the 1996-2003 program as well as former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who was issuing an initial report on his findings on Thursday.
Volcker last month criticised the United Nations for a haphazard response to internal audits showing mismanagement in the program that allowed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government to skim off at least $1.4 billion.
Andre Sirois, a lawyer and former UN whistle-blower who now advises fellow UN staff, said five or six staffers had asked him for advice on how to reveal evidence of wrongdoing in the oil-for-food program without jeopardising their careers.
Sirois said he advised them all against doing so because of a lack of protection in the staff rules.
All had followed his advice, he said. "They are very quiet and under a lot of stress."
The UN rules meant to shield whistle-blowers are in some cases undermined by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the very watchdog responsible for doing the protecting, UN employees and outside experts told Reuters.
The UN staff union is currently pursuing three cases - not including Dzuverovic's - in which staffers helping an internal investigation were harassed or lost their jobs as the OIOS looked on, they said.
Dzuverovic was initially supported by the internal oversight office when she reported on abuses in her workplace, including hiring and bidding irregularities. But her case was later dropped, with the office saying it didn't have enough money to investigate them.
While the UN Administrative Tribunal subsequently ruled in her favour and awarded her a small amount of compensation, she was never able to land another UN post.
"Many highly placed managers at the United Nations, including in New York, were aware of this situation but seemed unwilling to do anything about it," she said.
"UN people and the media react only to stories of embezzled billions. But unless UN staff react preventively to stop the harm before it grows to enormous proportions, and unless everybody does their small part, the abuses at the United Nations will not stop," she said.
The United Nations is a sprawling international behemoth of nearly 15,000 employees and a $1.8 billion annual budget for its main bureaucracy, not including $4 billion for troops and police and 20,000 staff that work in UN programs and funds.
Abuses that have become public in recent years range from sexual misconduct to hiring favouritism to procurement scams. When uncovered, wrongdoing is typically concealed or played down rather than publicised.
Current rules forbid reprisals against staff who report on mismanagement or misconduct, but staff representatives say the OIOS is only too willing at times to play politics with managers rather than protect low-level employees, they say.