Congo's War-Induced Poverty Fuels Sex Trade with UN Troops

[seemslikeadream]

By Raymond Thibodeaux
Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo
14 March 2005

Anxious to quell international outrage amid a widening sex scandal involving dozens of soldiers and officials for the U.N. mission in Congo, the United Nations now forbids its peacekeepers from having sexual contact with the people they are to protect. But some Congolese women and girls who depend on U.N. soldiers for their income are not happy with the new policy.

Francine is with her friend Yvette near the Okapi bar, a popular nightclub pulsating with Lingala music where the locals, including Congolese soldiers, often mingle with women and girls from the town of Bunia, the capital of Congo's northeast Ituri Province.

Soldiers from the U.N. mission in Congo, known as MONUC, used to come to this bar, but that was before charges surfaced that dozens of peacekeepers were having sex with underage Congolese girls, some as young as 12 years old. Some peacekeepers are accused of raping Congolese women and girls, allegations the U.N. is investigating.

Some of the girls, driven to sex work by the extreme poverty induced by five years of war and numerous post-war flare-ups, were given food or money in exchange for sex. One dollar is so standard a rate for sex in this region that those who allegedly have sex with U.N. soldiers are known as "one-dollar girls."
more
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-14-voa55.cfm

[ashmanonar]

1. wow.

i think i can see why aids is ravaging africa.

i've heard of worse than this, too. at least this is consensual. in the tribal wars, the victors raped and plunder the country side at will. (i suppose this is still happening today)

i have a feeling asia's next in line for an aids epidemic, what with the sex trade in all of those small asian countries. (thailand, etc, etc)

anyone get the feeling that aids might be the next thing to scourge the world clean? (i mean this in the sense of a world-wide destroyer to clear decks for the next evolutionary process, like asteroids or comets.)