Relief agency staff ‘abusing refugee children’

The United Nations and Save the Children said today that staff of many relief agencies have been accused of sexually exploiting West African refugee children they are supposed to be helping.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the UK-based children’s charity released an overview of the findings of an investigation they commissioned into sexual violence and exploitation of children in refugee camps in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone ‘‘much of it allegedly perpetrated by workers locally employed by national and international NGOs as well as by UN agencies including UNHCR’’.