When Booty Calls
We covered this six months ago.
Good to see the story hasn’t gone away:
Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found.
Girls have told of regular encounters with soldiers where sex is demanded in return for food or money.
A senior official with the organisation has accepted the claims are credible.
The UN has faced several scandals involving its troops in recent years, including a DR Congo paedophile ring and prostitute trafficking in Kosovo.
The assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations acknowledges that sexual abuse is widespread.
“We’ve had a problem probably since the inception of peacekeeping - problems of this kind of exploitation of vulnerable populations,” Jane Holl Lute told the BBC.
“My operating presumption is that this is either a problem or a potential problem in every single one of our missions.”
Holy bleep! Even I’m not that cynical.
But this is not news. If you check out our post from May, you’ll see stories going back two years. And I’m cynical? Compared to most UN missions, Abu Ghraib was Club Med.
Okay, maybe I am cynical.