May 31 2008
A sackable offense
(A 13-year-old who was gang-raped by UN Peacekeepers; Source: BBC News)
Save the Children’s been calling the actions of three dismissed workers “a sackable offense.” The men had been having sex with 17-year-old girls in areas where Save the Children provides relief.
After conducting research in Southern Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Haiti, Save the Children is calling on aid organizations worldwide and the UN to investigate widespread accusations of child sexual abuse.
The BBC reports one 13-year-old girl who claims she was gang-raped by 10 UN Peacekeepers in Ivory Coast. “Then they just left me there bleeding,” she said.
Save the Children’s report included incidents of survival sex, rape, child prostitution, pornography, and sex trafficking in children.
IRIN reported on the NGO’s findings, too. A girl from Haiti said:
My friends and I were walking by the National Palace one evening when we encountered a couple of humanitarian men. The men called us over and showed us their penises,” said a 15 year-old girl from Haiti whose testimony is included in the report. “They offered us 100 Haitian gourdes (US$2.80) and some chocolate if we would suck them. I said no, but some of the girls did it and got the money.
This kind of abuse is nothing new. Peacekeepers and aid workers operate in regions afflicted with natural disasters and manmade conflicts. The often politically unstable and socially chaotic situations put children at risk of abuse.
While everyone agrees it’s a minority of aid workers and Peacekeepers who are perpetrating abuse, they’re also saying that there has to be zero tolerance.
The bottom line is: The world asks devastated people for their trust, to trust that big fancy UN, and foreign aid, to keep the peace and save their children. And trust, when tampered with, can get pretty slippery.
See this table published by the BBC:
