NEW DELHI

A horrifying new research claims that since 1999, UN soldiers from 12 different nations have fathered and then abandoned thousands of children in the impoverished Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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The study also says that troops and police working under a UN mandate in the war-torn country molested children, raped young women, and exchanged food for'survival sex.'

According to the research, one victim was just eleven years old when her aunt sold her to UN forces, who loaded her with alcohol, raped her, and got her pregnant.

The bulk of the missing dads were from Tanzania and South Africa, with others from Morocco, Uruguay, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

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The men were serving in a variety of capacities, including soldiers, officers, and pilots, as well as drivers, chefs, physicians, and photographers.

The United Nations soldiers originally entered the DRC in 1999 as part of a ceasefire deal to end the Second Congo War, which was fought between the DRC and Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Nabibia, as well as rebel forces.

According to The Conversation, sexual assault and exploitation became a big worry not long after UN soldiers invaded the nation.

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When peacekeepers are present, there is typically a rise in sex trafficking and brothels near military posts, child prostitution, the trade of sex for goods or food, and the spread of sexually transmitted illnesses such as HIV.

Despite the fact that procedures are intended to be in place to prevent the wrongdoing, it has become recognised as a systematic problem, and every UN mission has been linked to charges of sexual exploitation and abuse.

The youngest girl questioned by the researchers who had a child with a peacekeeper was just 10 years old, and half were under the age of eighteen when they became pregnant.

A team from the University of Birmingham led the study, which interviewed hundreds of peacekeepers' children aged six to 19. They also interviewed the moms in depth and conducted hundreds of interviews in all.

Nearly half (1,182 respondents) of the 2,858 people interviewed mentioned unprompted the topics of peacekeeper abuse and abandoned children.

They discovered that the mothers of these children were frequently rejected by their own families and stigmatised within their communities, while the children grew up in extreme poverty and neglect, and were ignored and alienated.

(With inputs from agencies)

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