UK MPs probe unpublished UN ‘ sex- for- food’ findings

London, May 29: British MPs probing sexual abuse in the international charity sector are investigating an unpublished UN report from 2001 naming 15 major aid organisations implicated in a “sex- forfood” scandal, The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The charities were listed in a probe by UN and Save the Children officials who collected testimony from children in West Africa that aid workers had traded food for sex, according to the newspaper.

The Times obtained a copy of the 84- page report which is now also in the hands of lawmakers. The UN released a summary of the investigation in 2002 but the full report naming the agencies was never made public.

It has now been passed to the British parliament’s international development committee, the newspaper said.

The MPs are probing the aid sector following revelations earlier this year of a prostitution scandal in Haiti involving staff from British charity Oxfam. The report had found dozens of workers for more than 40 NGOs — including 15 international organisations — were “alleged to be in sexually exploitative relationships with refugee children”, according to The Times.

The list of implicated personnel were from UN agencies and other organisations in the sector, such as the Norwegian Refugee Council ( NRC), it reported. It said in a statement it had taken the report “very seriously” and followed up with its own investigation “resulting in the firing of one national staff member in Sierra Leone”. Researchers found aid workers in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia were “among prime sexual exploiters of refugee children” trading food, oil.