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April 21, 2005 - (The Economist) THE UNECO children's centre looks like any other Liberian school. Its pupils wear smartish uniforms and are eager, after 14 years of civil war and not much schooling, to learn. What is unusual is that every child at UNECO has been fathered by a foreign peacekeeper and then abandoned. The centre was founded by Dr Abraham Cole, a local teacher, "to show our gratitude to peacekeepers by taking care of their children."
Despite its name, the school receives no UN support besides food from the World Food Programme. Most of the 136 children at UNECO and a similar centre further north were conceived during the 1990s, when both the UN and Liberia's West African neighbours sent troops to Liberia. The number of abandoned babies is now set to surge, however. For the past 18 months, Liberia has hosted one of the largest and most successful UN peacekeeping missions, whose 15,000 blue helmets have now been around long enough to make more babies. A UN staffer said he expected 1,500 UN babies by the end of next year.
These children are not orphans. Their fathers are mostly alive, but have finished their tour of duty and gone home, often to waiting wives. Their
Liberian mothers abandon them either because they are poor, or because they have married a Liberian man who does not want a half-Nigerian child in his home.
In a broken state like Liberia, where 80% of the population live on less than 50 cents a day and women can be seduced by the promise of a
Mobile-phone scratch card, it is not easy to keep well-paid soldiers chaste. But it would be nice if the UN tried a bit harder. After a scandal in Congo last year, when Moroccan UN peacekeepers were charged with raping 13-year-olds, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, proclaimed a policy of "zero tolerance" for sexual exploitation. A report by Jordan's UN ambassador called for deductions from absentee fathers' salaries and
Courts martial in the country where any sexual offence takes place. But in practice, erring peacekeepers are rarely punished. Absentee fathers,
Rapists and even murderers simply disappear back home.
Some UN contingents in Liberia ban their members from bars. Some offer distractions such as gyms and movies, but the monthly budget for fun is only $8 per peacekeeper, and the thrills of table-tennis must eventually pall.
About 8% of Liberian adults are estimated to be infected with HIV, though the true figure may be higher—the recent civil war brought an epidemic of rape. Dr Cole visits barracks to persuade peacekeepers and their "camp girlfriends" to use condoms (the UN issues five per man per week), but it is not an easy task. Soldiers are inured to risk. And though Dr Cole has written to the UN asking for help with his school, he has yet to receive a reply.
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