With the United Nations already under fire for the Oil-for-Food mega-scandal and other corruption, sensational allegations of rampant sexual exploitation and rape of young girls and women by the U.N.'s so-called "peacekeepers" and civilian staffers in the Congo is dragging the global body's reputation to an all-time low.
In a new report referring to the widespread sex scandal as "the U.N.'s Abu Ghraib," the London Times provides some specific examples, including:
- A French U.N. logistics expert in the Congo shot pornographic videos in his home, in which he had converted his bedroom into a photo studio for videotaping his sexual abuse of young girls. When police raided his home, the man was allegedly about to rape a 12-year-old girl sent to him in a law enforcement sting operation. As the Times reported, a senior Congolese police officer confirmed the bed was surrounded by large mirrors on three sides, with a remote control camera on the fourth side.
- Two Russian pilots paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them, the report adds.
- U.N. officials are worried that the scandal, which already has netted 150 allegations of sex crimes by U.N. staffers, will explode if the pornographic videos and photos, now on sale in Congo, becoming public
"It would be a pretty big problem for the U.N. if these pictures come out," one senior official told the Times.
- U.N. "peacekeepers" from Morocco based in Kisangani – a secluded town on the Congo River – are notorious for impregnating local women and girls. In March, an international group probing the scandal found 82 women and girls had been made pregnant by Moroccan U.N. staffers and 59 others by Uruguayan staffers. One U.N. soldier accused of rape was apparently hidden in the barracks for a year.
Congo's Minister of Defense Maj.-Gen. Jean Pierre Ondekane told a top U.N. official that all U.N. "peacekeepers" in Kisangani would be remember for would be "for running after little girls," the Times reported.
And at least two U.N. officials – a Ukrainian and a Canadian – have been forced to leave the African nation after getting local women pregnant.
Most of the sexual abuse and exploitation, says the report, involves trading sex for money, food or jobs. However, some victims say they were raped, but later given food or money to make the incident appear to have been consensual – "rape disguised as prostitution."
Despite the fact that the U.N.'s sexual code of conduct is prominently displayed on U.N. facilities Congo – forbidding sex with prostitutes or women under 18 – the U.N. continues to hand out free condoms to "peacekeepers" to protect them from AIDS.
So much for swift military justice...especially after he actually admitted to doing the crime.