February 26, 2002

11:07 PM

Aid workers forcing refugees to trade sex for foodOver 40 aid agencies including the UNHCR were implicated, and 67 individuals - mostly local staff - named by the children. Some under-age girls said United Nations peacekeepers in the West African region were involved.
posted by nobody_knose (9 comments total)

Ouch. Well, that's ouch if it's not ethical, but I'm sure we can all agree on that.
posted by aaronshaf at 11:22 PM on February 26, 2002

Very, very sick. But they don't need to be punished, the article says that "Condoms were said to be rarely used by the staff involved. " Hell, they probably have AIDS now, (as it proliferates in that area)... that'll teach em.
posted by banished at 11:22 PM on February 26, 2002

Why would anyone want to take the chance have having sex with anyone in Africa... without a condom?

Who are these people?
posted by Aikido at 11:24 PM on February 26, 2002

Your friendly neighborhood U.N. peacekeeping forces. (read: occupying army)
posted by insomnyuk at 11:52 PM on February 26, 2002

Did they pillage or just this?

Here comes the airplane brrrbrrrrrrrrrrr
posted by Settle at 4:01 AM on February 27, 2002

banished: your last comment was just what I was about to say. You'd think they'd know better. Then again, you'd think no one would have the lack of decency to do something like this. Maybe STDs will serve a useful purpose for once--weeding out human waste like that.
posted by Dark Messiah at 4:35 AM on February 27, 2002

Noticed the sidebar, too

> Top Africa stories now:
>
> Riots rock Madagascar
> Congo peace talks close to collapse
> Bush urges Angola ceasefire
> West Africa leaders seek border peace
> Child refugee sex scandal
> Kenyan mayor scrapes through exam
> More Mugabe opponents charged
> Mogadishu racked by clan fighting

Jeez.
posted by jfuller at 6:22 AM on February 27, 2002

Human nature rears its ugly head. Again.
posted by rushmc at 6:51 AM on February 27, 2002

aikido: most of them are, in fact, Africans. Locals hired by the aid agencies because of their skills (driving, translating) or connections. (Story says "an absence of international staff", i.e. oversight, contributed to the problem.) And the same goes, actually, for the peacekeepers -- most of them are from countries like Nigeria, which runs a thriving outsourcing business with its army to subsidize the military budget.

Sadly, this is really par for the course on the still-very-dark continent; it was just magnified by the status and money these people had by virtue of international aid agencies.

Think that's shocking? Did you know that International Red Cross and Red Crescent runs poorhouse prisons in Afghanistan, one of which has kept a man in chains for years (he's been there 35, and there are no records indicating why he was placed there to begin with)?

Now, if people can get exercised enough about the Bush administration sending $43 million in humanitarian aid to be distributed through western agencies to call it "support for the Taliban" (I know there's one or two of you out there who still believe this), shouldn't they be ready to ask the same serious questions about the corruption that the aid agencies themselves encourage and underwrite by their very actions (often including giving jobs to gunmen and bribes to warlords)?
posted by dhartung at 10:37 AM on February 27, 2002