France investigating alleged sexual abuse by its troops in C.Africa

France is investigating allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic after a leaked UN report said victims as young as eight were raped in exchange for food and money. The French government “was made aware at the end of July 2014 by the UN’s high commission for human rights of accusations by children that they had been sexually abused by French soldiers,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The abuse was alleged by around 10 children, the ministry said, and reportedly took place at a centre for displaced people near the airport of the capital Bangui between December 2013 and June 2014.

The children were saying that they were hungry and they thought that they could get some food from the soldiers. The answer was ‘if you do this, then I will give you food’.

Paula Donovan, co-director of US-based advocacy group AIDS-Free World

The report by the UN human rights office was commissioned amid fears of sexual abuse against children last year as tens of thousands were displaced by fighting and unrest in the country. The UN employee accused of the leak, Swedish national Anders Kompass, is based in Geneva and turned the report over to French authorities because his bosses had failed to take action, The Guardian reported.

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