The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) is investigating new allegations implicating UN peacekeepers in the "sexual exploitation of minors," it said Thursday.
"MONUC has received allegations about the existence of a major prostitution ring involving minors, close to a large concentration of Congolese soldiers and Blue Helmets (UN forces) in South Kivu, (in the) north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo," the UN mission said in a statement.
A MONUC spokeswoman in the South Kivu capital Bukavu told AFP: "To attract the girls, the pimps used as a major advantage the fact that the Blue Helmets were there and could have money."
The statement did not mention the nationalities of the peacekeepers implicated, but the spokeswoman, Sylvie van den Wildenberg, said the region had UN troops from India, Pakistan, South Africa and Uruguay.
She stressed that: "Most of the UN troops in South Kivu were ... members of a Pakistani contingent whose ethics have rarely been questioned ... (and) Indian troops who have never been targeted with allegations of this kind."
MONUC's reputation was sullied two years ago by revelations that peacekeepers were involved in the sexual abuse of 13-year-old girls.
The scandal broke in December 2004 when "at least 140 cases of allegations of sexual exploitation implicating MONUC personnel" were recorded, according to Jean Tobie Okala, MONUC's deputy spokesman in the capital Kinshasa.
A report at the time said that the allegations reflected a grave, long-term problem among UN peacekeepers.
"The investigation ... found that the problem was serious and ongoing," said the internal affairs report, on 72 cases of alleged abuse.
The report said 20 cases were sufficiently detailed to move forward. One of those involved a civilian UN employee and the other 19 were UN peacekeepers.
Sources close to the cases said the civilian employee was a Frenchman, later jailed in France, and that the soldiers in question hailed from Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, Tunisia and Uruguay. The investigation was carried out in Bunia, Ituri, in the north-east of the DR Congo, from May to September 2004 after local media alleged peacekeeper abuse of women and young girls.
Many of the alleged acts were committed with "a feeling of impunity," the report noted.
The report also gave recommendations, especially that the UN demand member countries take "appropriate action" against offending soldiers.
The UN department of peacekeeper operations and MONUC should put into place a prevention program and should better inform soldiers what is expected of them when in contact with local populations, the report said.
MONUC should also institute stricter discipline, the report said.
The MONUC statement at the time said that MONUC "forcefully reaffirms, without any possible ambiguity, its zero-tolerance policy in this matter."
Set up in 1999 and known by its French acronym, MONUC counts some 17,600 soldiers, the largest peace mission currently deployed by the United Nations.