Children told of sex abuse by aid staff ten years ago

CHILDREN told investigators a decade ago that they were being forced into sex with aid workers for as little as a dollar, MPs were told yesterday.

A shocking report was published in 2008 revealing the scale of abuse in war zones involving victims as young as ten.

But, said its author Corinna Csaky, the abuse continued after politicians failed to commit to change.

The revelation was made to a Parliamentary committee looking into abuse after the Oxfam scandal.

The charity was criticised and lost millions in donations this year after it emerged some of its workers in Haiti engaged in ‘sex parties’ with prostitutes after the 2010 earthquake.

Miss Csaky’s findings did not name any specific charity but highlighted sexual exploitation as a sector-wide problem. Yesterday the aid worker set out the findings from her report to the International Development Committee.

She told how she had met 341 people, including victims, their families and members of the community to discuss allegations of child sexual abuse.

Her 2008 report No One to

‘Little girl given $1 and raped’

Turn To detailed the harrowing tales of young boys and girls who were targeted in war zones by aid staff and peacekeepers.

They included a young boy in Haiti who said a homeless girl was taken to a man who worked for an aid organisation.

‘He gave her one American dollar and the little girl was happy to see the money,’ the boy said. ‘It was two in the morning. The man took her and raped her. In the morning the little girl could not walk.’

A 14-year-old boy in the Ivory Coast said workers at a peacekeeping camp would sometimes ask for girls his age.

‘Often it will be between eight and ten men who will share two or three girls,’ he said. ‘They also use their mobile phones to film the girls.’

Children and parents said they were unable to report the assaults as the abusers were often local.

‘The people who are raping us and the people in the office are the same people,’ said a young girl in Haiti.

Miss Csaky said local staff made up the highest number of offenders in war zones.

‘These are contexts which are ravaged by conflict and disas- ter,’ she said. ‘This normalisation of sexual exploitation and abuse is rife. It’s by people in the local communities: businessman, teachers as well as people associated with the aid sector.

‘These humanitarian workers are not operating in a vacuum – many come from these local communities and the fact they are being supported by aid money from overseas means we bear some responsibility.’

When asked if any victims had complained, she highlighted one of the few cases when this had happened. A victim in South Sudan had died but the family was given ‘very strong advice’ by local government officials not to report the case.

They were told not to take action as it could endanger humanitarian assistance to the community.

Miss Csaky said there had been interest in her report initially but no long-term change or allocation of resources.