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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