The preteen-sex-for-food program

POSTED BY: Khyron
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 9, 2006 18:46
VIEWED: 4838
PAGE 1 of 2

1 2 NEXT PAGE LAST PAGE

KHYRON

Monday, May 8, 2006 5:37 AM

Anybody see this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4983440.stm

Liberia sex-for-aid 'widespread'
Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says.

Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report. The agency says such abuse is becoming more common as people displaced by the civil war return to their villages. The UN in Liberia said it would investigate specific allegations.

The United Nations promised to put safeguards in place after sexual abuse in the refugee camps of West Africa was first revealed four years ago. But a study by Save the Children, which involved speaking to more than 300 people in camps for people displaced by the war, found that abuse was still widespread. The report said that all of the respondents clearly stated that more than half of the girls in their locations were affected.

Girls from the age of eight to 18 years were being sold for sex, "commonly referred to as 'man business'," the report noted.

'Clear priority'

One 20-year-old woman told the BBC that she had been forced to have sex with a worker for the World Food Programme (WFP). "This young man had been doing it to most of my friends. And the children too don't have strong minds. They will have sex with him to get the food," Konah Brown said. But government officials and teachers are also contributing to the abuse, Save the Children says.

Teachers have demanded sex in lieu of school fees, or even just to give good grades the report found. "This cannot continue. It must be tackled," said Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children's UK Chief Executive. "Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be reported and fired.

"More must be done to support children and their families to make a living without turning to this kind of desperation." The WFP's Greg Barrow said the organisation would be taking the latest allegations with "the greatest seriousness" and was already taking steps to investigate them. "The key here is to find what link in this chain of delivering food, and getting it to the people who need it, is perhaps abusing this position," he told the BBC.

The UN's Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Liberia, Jordan Ryan, also said specific allegations would be investigated. "Unfortunately not all international NGOs have taken it seriously. But it is a clear priority," he said. "We have never done enough until there's a zero case load. Has enough been done? Not yet. Are we working on it? You bet we are."

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

KHYRON

Monday, May 8, 2006 8:08 PM

Who says Africa doesn't have any natural resources that the West wants? Since it's impossible for Liberia to pay for food with oil, I guess some other arrangement needed to be found.

It's a serious issue and I want more people to be aware and disgusted by it, so bump.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

CHRISISALL

Monday, May 8, 2006 8:33 PM

Another place the stong and mighty should be to defend the weak, Ooops! That's right, we're busy.

Sorry about the acidic sarcasm. Reading things like that make me feel like Charlton Heston at the end of 'Beneth The Planet Of The Apes', if you know what I mean...

OLDENGLANDDRY

Monday, May 8, 2006 9:47 PM

It's difficult to know what to say about a subject like this. I think in the deep down recesses of our consciences we all know that these things are happening far more regularly than we would like to admit. After all we (the modern western world i mean) are the great moral saviours of the world, right?
In the U.K. at the moment the police have recently started to "crack down" on sex-traffic prostitution, where girls and young women fron foriegn countries are conned, coerced or just plain kidnapped and forced to work in brothels. What the police are finding is the tip of a very large iceberg. Most of the girls are from eastern Europe but a proportion are from Asia and Africa. There clients are almost certainly well-to-do members of society and there is almost certainly a certain amount of blind-eye turning by local authorities.
I suppose I am using this example to point out that we are all becoming hardened to the discovery of these situations and when it happens close to home it becomes even harder to register a suitably disgusted response to it when it happens on the other side of the world.
Am I disgusted by it? Yes. Do I know what to do about it? No.
And my inability to come up with a suitable answer or even suggestion goes beyond frustration. The only thing left, to me at least is to carry the message forward and make sure more people learn about these situations and there consequences for our future as a civilized society.

AURAPTOR

Monday, May 8, 2006 10:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Another place the stong and mighty should be to defend the weak, Ooops! That's right, we're busy.

Sorry about the acidic sarcasm. Reading things like that make me feel like Charlton Heston at the end of 'Beneth The Planet Of The Apes', if you know what I mean...

It's ok. The UN will get right on that investigation. Right after it wraps up that tiny Food for Oil scandal thingy.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

CHRISISALL

Monday, May 8, 2006 10:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
The UN will get right on that investigation.

I hope you're right...but I won't hold my breath.

Chrisisall

HKCAVALIER

Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:09 AM

What the heck is the UN gonna do about this? It's just silly to think that more soldiers will mean less flesh-trafficking. Where there is a will there is a way.

So where does the will come from? What is wrong with the human species that this kind of brutalizing exploitation goes on (and on and on and on)? This is not simply normal male sexuality. Other primates do not buy and sell each other for sex--let alone children who aren't even old enough to concieve.

There is a terrible woundedness at the heart of human sexuality it would seem, something which developed in us during our evolutionary past, but we as a species are dead set against really investigating it. What are we protecting, do you suppose?

The need to have physical power over another human being (the kind of physical power nearly any adult has over nearly any child of 12) is symptomatic of a serious sense of worthlessness. Why do so many men feel so utterly worthless that they actually feel better after raping a 12 year old (at least until it wears off and they have to do it again) instead of much worse?

There are plenty of ways to get sex if you NEED it, other than raping children. No, when men rape children, the goal is raping children, not sex.

Also, this kind of violation requires a ton of rage to carry out. Where's all the rage come from? Why do so many have so much rage that they have to resort to bizarre acts of sexual predation? You know, rare individual psychosis is unavoidable to be sure, but this stuff is a worldwide phenomenon with infrastructures and de facto governmental sanction.

What is up with the human species?

My studies have given me some clues in how we raise our children, in the developement of so-called patriarchal societies, addictive pathology, etc.

But then I look at my own self and if anyone has the preconditions for a deeply violent sexuality, I do (for those who don't know, I was sexually abused by both my mother and my father for a period of years when I was very young), and yet I know I won't be violating anyone ever. How do I know? Couple things: one, I sought help and got it--I've done a ton of healing work (and will, no doubt, do a ton more); and two, well, I've always had a very oppinionated conscience.

When I was young my little Jimminy Cricket told me not to worry, that I would get out of that terrible house someday. Unable as my parents were to instill in me a sense of right from wrong, my own conscience has told me, through my own physical sensation, right from wrong; doing the wrong thing just feels, well, wrong and doing the right thing glows with hope and potential ('course there was a dangerous period in my late teens and early twenties when I tried to distance myself completely from my emotions--you know, too much pain--but aside from my being an "A" class asshat to everyone around me, I really only hurt myself).

My own conscience seems to me so utterly normal that it's hard for me to believe that all us humans aren't hardwired with such a useful li'l voice inside. My own experiences have taught me that we can (and all too often do) drown out this voice through any number of means. But my experience has also tought me that healing from even the most extreme sexual wounds is possible.

Let's all make the choice to heal our sexual wounds; talk about what bothers us; find someone we trust to tell our disturbing thoughts to; teach our children gentleness and compassion by example; and value our own human dignity enough to make ourselves heard and set an example. Can we do that?

Thanks Khyron.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:55 AM

Here's the part where I say that if I was ever sick enough to engage in that kind of misery for my own gratification, I would want someone to kill me.
Those who pimp human pain are just dead men walking, and unlike Spike, aren't soon likely to regain their souls.

*emotional rant off*

Respect innocent young humans, and let them grow- your garden will be full of light.

Chrisisallornothing on this topic

SASSALICIOUS

Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:58 AM

I'm so thoroughly appalled right now. I also can't say that this surprises me in the least, which is even scarier . . . that something so horrific doesn't seem entirely out of the ordinary.

But what shocks me the most is that it's being propagated by the people who are supposed to be helping the Liberians. When the UN gets around to doing their investigation, I bet they'll be unpleasantly surprised to find some of their own men involved.

Is it bad that I lose faith in the human race a little more every day?

I want a private paradise

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, May 9, 2006 1:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sassalicious:

Is it bad that I lose faith in the human race a little more every day?

I can only say to you go back a hundred or more years, and it was worse. At least this kind of situation will be gone in a century or so...

Seriously, these abberations are relatively small in number when one considers the total percentage of possible offenders.

eh, doesn't make ME feel better about it either Chrisisall

1 2 NEXT PAGE LAST PAGE