West Africans express disgust but little surprise at sex abuse
( 2002-02-28 14:28 ) (7 )

West African officials said Thursday they were disgusted by allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children by relief agency workers. But the news came as no surprise to many in a region scarred by years of brutal war.

Liberia's deputy health minister, Arthur Saye, said he was disappointed to learn the country's relief workers were among those implicated in the investigation.

``I did not know that the people we thought were helping the needy were the ones endangering their future,'' he said.

In neighboring Sierra Leone, Information Minister Cecil Blake said it was a ``shocking revelation'' and promised anyone found guilty of sexually exploiting refugees would ``face the full force of the law.''

But in the camps that accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people displaced in more than a decade of fighting in Liberia and Sierra Leone, refugees are all too familiar with such abuses.

``Here in this camp, it happens plenty, plenty times,'' said a Sierra Leonean mother of seven at a camp in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. ``They take advantage of our condition.'' She asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

The allegations were contained in an interim report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Save the Children, UK, who uncovered evidence of abuse at camps in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Children told the investigators that aid workers and some security forces extracted sexual favors in exchange for food and other services. Their allegations against 67 workers and 40 organizations could not be independently confirmed, but the two organizations said Tuesday the number of complaints left no doubt there was a serious problem of sexual exploitation.

Human rights groups demanded that governments ensure those responsible are prosecuted.

The region has been terrorized by armed groups like Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front _ which raped, maimed and killed tens of thousands of civilians during a 10-year insurrection.

``In war situations, people do what they would not do under normal conditions,'' said Lemuel Smallwood, a university student who was discussing the report with friends at a Monrovia tea shop.

The director of Liberia's refugee repatriation commission expressed frustration that his impoverished government could not do more to combat the problem.

``We feel very discouraged, but the unfortunate thing is that we don't have the capacity to monitor these happenings,'' he said.

Because of the stigma associated with sexual violence, refugees were reluctant to discuss any abuse they might have experienced, but many said it was a widespread problem.

``Our women and children shouldn't have to offer themselves sexually and sell their bodies for things that are sent to us,'' said Mustafa Samah, a Sierra Leonean refugee in Monrovia. ``But we as refugees don't have our own way.''

UNHCR and Save the Children have said they take the problem seriously and have started taking steps to protect refugees, including dispatching more foreign personnel and increasing the number of women working in the camps.

Some local employees of international aid groups protested they had been unfairly singled out in the report as the ones primarily responsible for abuses.

``It is meant to discredit the local employees so that more international staff could be brought to supervise the distribution of food,'' said an employee at the camp for amputees in Sierra Leone, who declined to give his name.

Liberia was destroyed by a 1989-96 civil war, while Sierra Leone's conflict was only officially declared over last month.

Guinea was for years spared the violence that convulsed its two neighbors, whose citizens it welcomed by the hundreds of thousands. But the country's reputation as a haven was shattered two years ago when fighting broke out along its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

While clashes have now subsided in Guinea, a recent upsurge of fighting in Liberia has sent tens of thousands of civilians on the move again.