The report documents the failure of the U.N. refugee agency to ensure the security of refugee camps and to prevent or respond to domestic violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation against refugee children. More than 100,000 refugees still live in camps in Guinea which are dangerously close to the Sierra Leone border, where they have been killed, abducted, and mutilated in cross-border armed attacks, Human Rights Watch said. The world has taken on the challenge to protect refugees in Europe.
African children deserve no less.
The parties to the conflict in Sierra Leone signed a peace treaty in Lome, Togo earlier this month, but the refugees are unlikely to return until their safety can be guaranteed, said Rachael Reilly, Refugee Policy Director for Human Rights Watch. Tens of thousands of children are living in unacceptable conditions right now in the camps. Human Rights Watch identified a clear link between the lack of food security for the refugees and many of the human rights abuses documented in the report. Girls as young as twelve testified that they have no choice but to prostitute themselves with up to three men a day in order to feed themselves and, in some cases, their families. The world has taken on the challenge to protect refugees in Europe.