Government and UN vow to investigate sex trade report

The government of Liberia and the UN peacekeeping mission on Tuesday promised to conduct investigations into a report by British-based charity Save the Children that government workers, peacekeepers and aid workers are giving Liberian girls money, food and favours in return for sex. And ordinary Liberians told IRIN that growing poverty appeared to be fuelling promiscuous sexual behaviour. In its report released this week, Save the Children said officials at camps for displaced Liberians, peacekeepers, government employees and teachers were among those abusing their positions of authority to have sex with girls as young as eight. “This report will be looked at thoroughly and the Justice Ministry will take the lead to prosecute those involved in these acts against our girls,” Mohammed Sheriff, Deputy Health Minister in Liberia’s new government, told IRIN. “This is a very serious issue.” As a parliamentarian in the previous transitional government, Sheriff backed a widely acclaimed anti-rape law that made rape illegal for the first time in Liberia. Previously only gang rape was outlawed. Now he serves under Liberia’s first elected post-war President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who took office in January. The report, “From Camp to Community: Liberia Study on Exploitation of Children”, based its finding of underage sex against gifts or cash on investigations late last year in four highly populated communities and some camps for displaced people. Some 300 people were interviewed. “All of the communities and camp inhabitants described the widespread nature of the problem and the increasing resignation among adults and children that sex in exchange for goods, services and as a means of survival was becoming a more common option for children to support themselves and their families,” Save the Children said. The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which has some 15,000 troops maintaining peace after 14 years of brutal civil war, said it considered any form of exploitation intolerable and had begun its own investigations. “A review team from the Conduct and Discipline Unit is proceeding immediately to the area where allegations have been raised against peacekeepers. This team will reiterate the organisation’s zero tolerance policy. All specific evidence of sexual exploitation or abuse will be handled by the relevant investigative mechanisms,” UNMIL said in a statement on Monday. According to the UN, reports of sexual abuses have been levied against peacekeepers in missions in Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, East Timor, Kosovo and West Africa. While allegations of abuse have plagued peacekeeping missions since they first began 50 years ago, the issue was thrust into the spotlight after the UN found last year that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small gifts of cash. According to the UN in Liberia, eight reports of sexual abuse and exploitation have been made against UN staff since the beginning of 2006 alone. One case has been substantiated and the staff member “immediately suspended”; in another the incident was found to involve an employee from an unidentified contractor - in this case UNMIL cut relations with that organisation. Most cases remain under investigation, said a separate statement from UNMIL on Sunday. In mid-April, UNMIL released the results of a public opinion survey on how Liberians regarded the activities of UN peacekeepers in the country. Some of the results were disturbing. More than one in five respondents raised concerns about sexual issues and peacekeepers. “About 22 per cent of the participants (167 out of 770) reported that some peacekeepers had raped women and young children and had contributed to the encouragement of prostitution among young girls, leading them to drop out of school,” the survey said. Meanwhile Liberians interviewed by IRIN said the Save the Children report highlighted a worrisome problem and called on their government to act. “I heard of this report though I have not read it, but listened to parts of it on the radio which are very timely,” said Geneva Cooper, Liberian social worker. “The poverty rate in this country is very high and most parents are now using their girl-children to go out with older men who would give them money to support the family…it is a serious problem now.” Young Liberian men too were angry, saying that young girls are being lured away from their studies. “If you go out in the streets especially at night you see those girls who are supposed to be home studying or by their parents, usually riding around in cars and taking them to the night clubs. The behaviour of those men is very bad,” said Jeremiah Quiah a university student. Liberia Women Media Action Committee, one of the leading local campaign groups against sexual abuse and exploitation, said even in schools girls are open to abuse by their teachers. “There is a case right now in Maryland County [southeastern Liberia] where a teacher is involved in having sex with female students,” Estella Nelson, head of the committee told IRIN. “We have received that report and want government to put its feet down to halt it.”