News: UN Peacekeepers - sexual misconduct scandals continue...

Although a group of Indian peacekeeping soldiers accused of sexual abuse in eastern Congo have returned home, allegations of misconduct continue to surround the battalion.

The United Nations confirmed last month that an internal investigation had uncovered credible evidence that members of an Indian unit stationed in North Kivu province “may have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse”.

A UN source said around 100 peacekeepers from India allegedly used children both to work for them and to hire Congolese girls for sex, using the children as domestic servants and to pimp for prostitutes, some as young as 12 or 13 years old.

Peacekeepers are strictly forbidden to socialise with local people, but Mapendo Polepole, a 28-year-old prostitute from Goma, who heads an organisation of women living with AIDS, testified Indian soldiers from the camp in central Goma are regular customers.

“They have sexual intercourse with us, without condoms, in their jeeps, during a patrol and in their camps,” she said, adding that the soldiers pay 20 US dollars for her services rather than the going rate of two dollars. (Full)

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Source: International Aid Workers Today
Picture courtesy: AP Photo / Sayyid Azim