The BBC reports that the United Nations still has not stopped its aid workers and peacekeepers from turning female refugees into prostitutes in order to secure food and water. Some of the victims are as young as eight years old, and the problem is widespread, according to Save The Children:

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.

This behavior was first revealed four years ago, and two years ago the scope of the problem became common knowledge, thanks to a series of reports in the British newspaper The Independent. Since then, Turtle Bay has repeatedly promised to clean house and to put an end to a practice they themselve define as both a war crime and a form of genocide. Two years later and God knows how many victims later, the UN still says it is "investigating".

Can anyone name anything that the UN has done in the last ten years that has actually been beneficial to anyone? Even their aid programs have become nothing more than a cover for the exploitation of defenseless children, and the worst aspect of it is that everyone knows it and does nothing to stop it. In my last post, I talk about the maintenance of UNSC credibility, but how can any organization that is demonstrably and structurally unable to stop this grotesque abuse retain any credibility at all?

The UN makes a great debating society, and if it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it as such. Other than that, we should bring an end to its supposed moral authority in any fashion, and let nations form their own multilateral ties to solve problems like Liberia, Congo, and Darfur. That way, the individual nations can and will be held accountable for their actions -- a mechanism sorely missing at the UN.

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