UN failed to act on peacekeepers’ abuse in Central African Republic

The United Nations’ “gross institutional failure” to act on allegations that French and other peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic led to even more assaults, according to a report.

One young boy who initially reported an attack on his friends more than a year ago now says he has been raped as well.

The independent panel found that the accounts by children as young as nine of trading oral sex and other acts in exchange for food in the middle of a war zone in early 2014 were “passed from desk to desk, inbox to inbox, across multiple UN offices, with no one willing to take responsibility”.