Following shocking revelations of child sexual abuse by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic, the UN has warned that it is “horribly possible” that information about more such cases may emerge, RT wrote.
Hungry, homeless young boys in the Central African Republic were forced by French soldiers to perform sex acts on them in return for food or money, the director of an advocacy group said Thursday, citing a confidential United Nations report on alleged abuses.
The French investigation followed numerous reports of sexual exploitation and abuse of children by the French military before the establishment of MINUSCA – the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Central African Republic. The period under investigation is December 2013 through June 2014. Colville called the allegations “abhorrent” and “utterly odious.”
Earlier this week, the Guardian published a leaked UN report exposing a rape case at a center for internally displaced people at M’Poko Airport in CAR’s capital Bangui. It alleges, based on witnesses testimony that French peacekeepers forced children - some as young as nine - into performing sexual acts instead of protecting them.
Paula Donovan co-director of the AIDS-Free World said children interviewed also accused soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea of molesting kids. She also accused the UN of trying to cover up the scandal.
“You can say it was a UN cover-up,” Donovan said. “The UN’s disturbingly self-defensive instincts are all about how can we protect the bureaucracy, not how can we protect and treat the victims and prevent any instance of future abuse in these particular locations or in any other locations around the world.”
Meanwhile, Anders Kompass, the senior UN aid worker who leaked the UN report containing allegations French soldiers sexually abused children was been suspended.
UN human rights office spokesperson Rupert Colville confirmed on Friday that Kompass was suspended for leaking to French authorities the documents in which children detailed alleged acts of abuse, and that an investigation into his conduct was under way.
