Audrey Gillan in Blama Camp, Sierra Leone, talks to refugee children, some as young as 14, the victims of aid workers and foreign peacekeepers who misused their power to sexually exploit vulnerable under-age girls.
Finda James thought she had at last found sanctuary when she came to the refugee camp at Blama. She had watched rebel soldiers kill her mother and had been taken prisoner by them. Freed by government troops, she was brought to this camp, which houses more than 15,000 people who have been internally displaced by the 10 years of civil war in Sierra Leone.
With no rebels at the camp, Finda, 14, thought she would be safe. But she found herself confronted with a problem that is endemic in the refugee camps of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia: she became the victim of an aid worker who offered her rations in return for sex.
Now she finds herself alone with a seven-month-old baby boy called Saha.
Stories like this are being investigated by a team from the United Nations, sent after a recent report by the UNHCR and Save the Children concluded that there was compelling evidence of a "chronic and entrenched pattern" of abuse in refugee camps in the three west African countries, involving mostly locally employed workers for international non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
More than 40 NGOs and 67 individuals have been implicated in allegations that aid was withheld unless paid for by sex.
A Guardian inquiry has found that sexual exploitation is prevalent among aid workers in west Africa.
One senior worker said: "This is only the tip of the iceberg. It is irrefutable."
The UNHCR report has been criticised for its methodology and use of hearsay as evidence, but its general conclusions have alarmed aid agencies.
A spokesman for Médecins sans Frontières, one of the charities named in the report, said that the evidence presented to it against some of its staff was thin, but that there was a major problem of abuse in the region.
He said: "We never realised the extent of the problem. It seems to be great. It's a difficult issue, but we should not hide from it."
A fuller, 80-page version of the report, which listed the aid agencies alleged to have employed people suspected of abuse, was suppressed by the UNHCR.
The Guardian has obtained a full copy. It accuses two British charities, Merlin and Save the Children, of employing staff who have allegedly abused refugee children. A spokesman for Merlin said: "It is good that it has been brought to light, although it's unsubstantiated. We are looking into it. Its something that has to be taken seriously."
Workers for the UNHCR and the World Food Programme are implicated in similar abuse allegations, along with people working for such NGOs as Médecins sans Frontières, CARE, Action Contre la Faim and the International Rescue Committee.
Most of the men accused of abuse are locals, employed by the international agencies to work in refugee camps and programmes on the ground. Some have been suspended, others have been exonerated,and some remain the subject of investigation.
The UN has been accused of complacency for sitting on the report for three and a half months. A number of aid agencies named in the report are angry that they were not told about its contents until they were leaked, and are furious that they were not given the names of the alleged abusers until three weeks ago.
The Guardian understands that the UNHCR did nothing with the report after it was received last November, only releasing it in late February. It has been accused of simply "ignoring" high levels of sexual abuse and of a "chronic failure to take child protection issues seriously".
Alarm bells
"The failure on UNHCR's part is that that report did not send alarm bells ringing through the entire organisation or prompt them to take rapid action," Rachael Reilly of Human Rights Watch said. "They sat on this for four months. We don't know what has happened in those four months to silence the children and cover up the evidence. It's a real mess."
The report says: "Girl children have found that they have to use their bodies to provide food, clothing, and at times educational support, for themselves, their parents and their siblings.
"Unfortunately, humanitarian agencies have created a conducive environment in which sexual exploitation has thrived."
Crouching with her baby outside a shelter built of mud and wooden slats, Finda explained what happened.
"When I came to this camp I didn't have somebody else to take care of me. I met this man when I walked past him on my way to school. He said: 'I will help you.' He said he would give me better food and clothes, and money and soap. The first time he forced me to make love and it was horrible because I had never done it before. I was 14 years old. It was a terrible thing to happen to me."
Pregnancy
She claimed that the man who fathered her child was a Sierra Leonean working for the International Rescue Committee, a well-respected American aid agency. In a statement last night, the agency said that it had looked at the Guardian's evidence in detail. It said its records showed that a former staff member "had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with a beneficiary unbeknownst to IRC".
It said: "The beneficiary in question became pregnant, at which point the IRC staff member distanced himself from the relationship. The beneficiary then approached IRC Sierra Leone to report the member of staff. [He] was suspended from duties pending an investigation.
"Although parenthood was never proven, IRC discovered that the relationship had taken place, at which point IRC terminated the staff member for inappropriate behaviour."
Finda said the relationship lasted for four months, always with the promise that she would get more rations, but she never did.
"He bought nothing for me. He didn't help me. There were no clothes, no better food, no soap. When I told him I was belly [pregnant], he said, 'It wasn't me'."
She added: "My mummy was killed by the rebels and I don't know where my dad is. I don't even know if he is alive. I am glad because of the baby, but I don't have anybody to assist me and I have nothing for the child."
Blama camp is a collection of hundreds of shelters made from mud and sticks, set on a hill. Each shelter, called a booth, sleeps six in a small muddy room. Most have two rooms, and an outside cooking and sitting area. Life here is difficult enough without the threat of abuse by aid workers.
Christiana Samu, a traditional birth attendant, has been a confidante of many during her three years in the camp.
"There are so many problems for the young girls of this camp," she said. "These ladies were forced to make love for their daily bread. They had to have sex just to get their ration card. We were not happy about this situation, but because the NGOs were responsible for the latrines and the training and the food and everything else we could not say anything about it. We were powerless."
Aid workers are not the only people accused of abuse in the full report. International peacekeepers charged with helping to rebuild a society shattered by civil war and brutality that has left thousands of amputees, are also alleged to have sexually exploited under-age girls.
Now the men in the blue helmets have been warned against "misconduct that could undermine the work of the mission" and have been put under a curfew.
Rule four of the "10 rules of personal conduct" UN peacekeepers must abide by says that they should "not indulge in immoral acts of sexual, physical or psychological abuse or exploitation of the local population or UN staff, especially women and children". But abuse still occurs.
On the golden sand of Lumley beach, Freetown, the prostitutes stroll along or sit in bars, touting for business. A 15-year-old girl with long braids said that she still did business with the "blue helmets".
Antoinette, who began sleeping with expatriates when she was 15, said: "The peacekeepers and NGOs came here to help us, but I don't believe they do. It doesn't help just to make love and give us a little bit of money. Many of them go for small, small girls. They shouldn't do it."
Isha, who came to work as a prostitute in Freetown after leaving her family behind in a refugee camp in Guinea, added: "This has been going on since the UN peacekeepers came to this country, as well as the NGOs. They came here to do their job and to help us get peace and instead they are going round with little girls. These people know what they are doing is wrong."
Chris Robinson, director of Save the Children in Sierra Leone, said the emergence of the allegations of abuse had highlighted serious issues which the humanitarian community needed to address.
"Rations are not sufficient for people to survive on," he said. "If the level of funding is not sufficient for the needs of the refugee community then obviously they will look for other ways of living."
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