United Nations: In exchange for food from UN peacekeepers, children as young as nine traded oral sex in warzones while officials looked the other way, according to a shocking report claimed.
Memos about the sexual abuse in the Central African Republic were “passed from desk to desk, inbox to inbox, across multiple UN offices, with no one willing to take responsibility”, the report found, reported the Sunday Express.
It added: “The welfare of the victims and the accountability of the perpetrators appeared to be an afterthought, if considered at all.”
According to the investigation, French peacekeepers from the UN’s children agency, UNICEF, failed to act on reports of sexual abuse in early 2014 in the midst of civil war.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed “profound regret that these children were betrayed by the very people sent to protect them” and accepted the panel’s comprehensive findings.
It must be noted that even after more than a year and a half of the sexual abuse allegations, not even a single arrest has been done.
The report furthered that “some children alleged further cases of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.”
One child, who a year earlier at age 11 had told UN staffers about watching peacekeepers rape his friends, “now reported that he himself had been orally and anally raped.”
Last week, four French soldiers were questioned and released without charge, reported the English daily.
What’s more shocking? It took 12 months for UN staff to respond to allegations of rape by six children.