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 HRW documented 10 incidents of rape and sexual assault, including
the rape of a 12-year-old girl, by African Union Mission in Somalia
(AMISOM) troops in 2013 and 2014.
The rights group said most of the incidents took place on AMISOM
bases in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where women come for medical
care and to beg for food.
"Where this case is particularly shocking is the direct use of
humanitarian assistance to lure these women in," said Laetitia
Bader, one of the report's authors.
"These were displaced women coming in to get medical assistance and
it's when they are in the outpatient clinics that they get
approached by a Somali intermediary who says: 'Why don't you come
back to the base? We'll give you medication,'" Bader told Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
One woman, known as Ayanna, told HRW she was gang raped at gunpoint
by six Burundian soldiers after going to their outpatient clinic to
get medicine for her sick baby.
One of the three other women who were also raped at the same time
was badly hurt.
"We carried the injured woman home," she told HRW. "Three of us
walked out of the base carrying her… She couldn't stand."
The soldiers threw packets of porridge, cookies and $5 at the women
as they left, she said.
Rape is rarely punished in Somalia, particularly of vulnerable women
living in overcrowded Mogadishu camps housing some 350,000 people
displaced by war and famine.
SEX FOR FIVE DOLLARS
HRW also interviewed 14 displaced women and girls selling sex to
AMISOM soldiers for around $5 a day. Sexual exploitation – the abuse
of power or trust for sexual purposes – is in violation of their
code of conduct.
The sex trade on AMISOM bases appears "routine and organized", HRW
said.
Women who visited the bases regularly were not checked on their way
in and HRW was told that some lived there, ostensibly employed as
interpreters.
"Somali women having paid sex with soldiers have been able to obtain
AMISOM badges allowing them easy access in and out of what should be
highly secure military zones," the report said.
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The African Union force deployed to Somalia in 2007 to help restore
order and defeat the Islamist militant group al Shabaab. It is
credited with pushing al Shabaab out of many towns in south-central
Somalia, strengthening the hold of the two-year-old Somali federal
government.
Al Shabaab confirmed on Saturday that its leader, Ahmed Godane, had
been killed in a U.S. air strike last week.
AMISOM's 22,000 troops come from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia,
Sierra Leone and Djibouti. They are immune from prosecution by the
Somali government, with responsibility falling on their own
governments.
Only two out of the 21 women and girls interviewed filed a
complaint, for fear of reprisals, HRW said, while those having sex
for money did not want to lose their main source of income.
"We take all allegations against AU Troops in Somalia very
seriously, especially allegations of sexual abuse," AMISOM’s
spokesman Eloi Yao told Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email.
"Any AMISOM personnel found guilty of any such crimes will be dealt
with appropriately."
(Editing by Ros Russell rosalind.russell@thomsonreuters.com; Thomson
Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers
underreported humanitarian, human rights, corruption and climate
change issues. Visit www.trust.org)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
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