May 25, 2004
UN troops routinely raping refugees in the Congo.
Those who think that replacing American rapists and thugs in Iraq with UN troops ought to read this
article in the
Independent that claims that UN troops in the Congo are routinely coercing sex from young girls in the refugee camps there.
Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the stop their suffering.
The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace-keepers.
Testimony from girls and aid workers in the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Bunia, in the north-east corner of Congo, claims that every night teenage girls crawl through a wire fence to an adjoining UN compound to sell their bodies to Moroccan and Uruguayan soldiers.
The trade, which according to one victim results in a banana or a cake to feed to her infant son, is taking place despite a pledge by the UN to adopt a "zero tolerance" attitude to cases of sexual misconduct by those representing the organisation.
One girl, Faela, 13, whose son, Joseph, is not yet six months old, has described how the social stigma of her fatherless child, the result of repeated rape by militiamen in her village, mean she is treated like a pariah in the chaotic and violent Bunia camp, which is home to 15,000 people.
She said: "It is hard in the camp for the girls like me with little babies and no husbands. We have no men to look after us. We have been dirtied by the soldiers who came to our villages. No one will take us as their wives and it is hard to get food in the camp for us."
She added: "It is easy for us to get to the UN soldiers. We climb through the fence when it is dark, sometimes once a night, sometimes more."
During a five-day period, The Independent spoke to more than 30 girls, half of whom said they made the 20-metre journey from the camp to gaps in the wire fences of the compound run by Monuc, the UN mission in Congo.
One worker, employed by Atlas, the aid group that manages the camp, confirmed that staff were aware of the trade in sex but were too frightened to tackle it.
He said: "There is nothing to stop them and the girls need food. It is best to keep quiet, though. I am frightened that if I say something I may lose my job and I have children of my own to feed."
The UN has announced its own inquiry into the allegations, warning that it will apply "all available sanctions" against those responsible. But doubts remain about the effectiveness of the investigation and the ability of the UN to bring those responsible to justice.
Dominique McAdams, the head of the UN in Bunia, said she believed that there was sexual violence in the camp, but said she had yet to see any evidence.
They call it "being sexually exploited." I call that rape myself. And it also qualifies as child abuse. It's bad enough for them to have been raped in their own countries. But for it to be done under the aegis of the UN is truly horrendous.
It's not surprising that the UN can't bring those "responsible to justice." The UN is an organization without any democracy, and without any elected representatives responsible accountable to the people who elected them. It has no formal body of law or systems of due process, there is no systematic and effective judicial apparatus (at least not one under the control of democratically elected officials) to rule on its actions, and no police force empowered to enforce the rulings of its judiciary.
The charter under which it operates was established in 1945 by a group of so-called "great powers" whose goal was to maintain their control of the world, and not to establish any form of world "government." On the contrary, their goal was to prevent the emergence of any sort of global government that would restrict their own activities. It is not a "government" in any sense of the word, and under its current stucture it is simply incapable of carrying out the functions of a government, most especially prosecuting wrongdoers acting under its control.
