Guinea: Sex for Food
Duration: 13'16"
Reporter: Sorious Samura
Producer: Ivan O'Mahoney
Director: Will Daws
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In 'Guinea: Sex for Food' award winning reporter Sorious Samura travels to Guinea,
West Africa, to investigate the shocking disclosure by UNHCR that aid workers
are demanding sex from refugee children in return for the aid they are supposed
to give.
Through Sorious' unique ability to relate to the refugees - many of them
are from his native Sierra Leone - we learn that young girls sell their bodies,
simply to stay alive.
As 14-year-old Maria tells us: "When I was going to school, an aid worker
said to me 'I want you.' 'He said 'I'll be feeding you'. So we went on until
I became pregnant."
We discover that the UN does not provide the refugees with some of the most
basic of supplies like cooking fuel and clothes. And worse: the refugees'
monthly food rations usually run out within 20 days, leaving them hungry and
desperate. The girls tell us they are forced to turn to the only people they
feel can help them, the aid workers. And some of them, in turn, seem to have
no problem in abusing their tremendous power.
We witness how the refugees' desperation reaches formidable heights when
during monthly distribution day, the refugees are told that they will not
receive maize, and will not be given cooking oil. The World Food Program,
we find, had to divert its supply ship to Afghanistan, leaving the refugees
short. As the plight of the West African refugees is ignored, hunger turns
to anger and a violent food riot erupts.
Rocks are hurled at the aid workers and refugees fight frantically over
sacks of grain. Eventually, the army is called in to evacuate the shaken aid
workers.
After the riot we speak to Mattu, another young girl nursing a baby fathered
by an aid worker. Like most, she missed out in the scramble for food and has
resorted to cooking leaves picked in the forest. Mattu says she has no choice
but to sleep with another aid worker again. "It's not from the heart, but
hunger can make you do it. Without supplies, how can we not do it?"
It's a cruel irony that sleeping with aid workers for food and supplies
is actually safer than getting it yourself. Sorious talks to 17-year-old Finda
who takes us to the forest where she was sexually assaulted while scavenging,
just the day before our arrival in the camp.
The UN is currently investigating individual allegations, while UNHCR is
drafting a new code of conduct, which will explicitly prohibit the abuse of
power and sexual exploitation. By the end of the story, however, it's clear
that it will take a lot more than words to stop young girls from having to
sell their bodies to survive.
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