Sex-for-food scandal

last updated 8 January 2015

Monrovia, Liberia

U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers are forcing Liberian girls as young as 8 to have sex in return for food or other perks, Save the Children said this week. The U.N. force in Liberia said that eight cases of such exploitation have been reported so far this year, but the activist group said there were hundreds of other cases in the refugee camps. “Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be reported and fired,” said Save the Children head Jasmine Whitbread. More than 1 million Liberians displaced by civil war still live in camps. U.N. peacekeepers have also been accused of sexual exploitation in Bosnia, Congo, and Haiti.