African Union forces in Somalia to help UN backed government battle insurgents
African Union (AU) troops raped women and girls seeking
medical aid or water from their bases in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, a rights
group says.
The troops had "misused" their power over women
fleeing violence and poverty, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
One Muslim girl, aged 15, reportedly had her headscarf
ripped off before being raped.
The AU, which has some 22,000 troops fighting militant
Islamists in Somalia, says it will investigate the claims.
In 2012, the UN recorded 1,700 rapes in camps for displaced people in Somalia.
Many were thought to have been carried out by members of
the Somali security forces.
'Raped girl paid'
Last year, there was a huge public outcry following claims that
AU and government soldiers
had gang-raped a woman in Mogadishu.
A joint investigation
by the AU and government dismissed the allegation as unfounded, even though
neither the woman nor independent witnesses had been interviewed.
Most of the women
who were abused lived in camps for displaced people after fleeing violence and
the 2011 famine, HRW said.
"The AU can no
longer turn a blind eye to the abuses on Amisom [AU Mission in Somalia] bases,
as it's undermining the very credibility of the mission," said Liesl
Gerntholtz, HRW's women's rights director.
It interviewed 21
women and girls, some as young as 12, who described being raped or sexually
exploited by Ugandan or Burundian soldiers in the AU force, HRW said.
Only one rape case,
in which the victim was a child, is before Uganda's military court in Kampala,
it added.
"Some Amisom
soldiers have used humanitarian assistance, provided by the mission, to coerce
vulnerable women and girls into sexual activity," HRW said.
"A number of
the women and girls interviewed for this report said that they were initially
approached for sex in return for money or raped while seeking medical
assistance and water on the Amisom bases, particularly the Burundian
contingent's base."
A Burundian soldier
gave a 15-year-old girl $10 (£6) after raping her, HRW said.
"First he
ripped off my hijab [headscarf] and then he attacked me," it quoted her as
saying.
The girl had gone
to an AU base of Burundian soldiers to collect medicine for her mother who was
ill, HRW said.
Somalia has been
hit by instability since the overthrow of long-serving ruler Siad Barre in
1991.
The AU force was
deployed in 2007, with most of its troops coming from Uganda and Burundi.
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