Didier Bourguet shifts in his seat and adjusts his red tie. He is finding it hard to recall how many children he raped when he was working for the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo...
There have been thousands of allegations against the UN’s military peacekeepers, but only 53 have been jailed for sexual offences
Didier Bourguet shifts in his seat and adjusts his red tie. He is finding it hard to recall how many children he raped when he was working for the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2004: “I would say about 20, maybe 25. I didn’t count.”
Bourguet was earning $7,000 a month as head of logistics in the peacekeeping mission in Goma while getting locals to procure children for him. He had two assets that ensured children trusted him: he was white and he worked for the UN.
He said the sex was consensual but is unsure whether the children were afraid to say no: “I’m not sure. I don’t think so but I’m not sure. Could be.”
After the Congolese police arrested Bourguet and the French authorities jailed him for nine years in 2008, the UN made a public promise to help his victims. That promise was never kept.
The UN said it could not find the victims. But 14 years on, when we investigated UN sex abuse for Channel 4, it took only one afternoon for my producer to find four women whom Bourguet had raped when they were children.
Bourguet’s hunting ground was the slum around Goma airport where barefoot children in ragged clothes scamper through the alleyways.
Adults remember the rapes well. Valerie Safari was 14 when she used to sell bananas by the side of the road to pay for her education. Luring her with promises of help, for six months Bourguet took her to a hotel where he abused her.
“He was so old, as old as my father,” she whispered.
Bourguet, a civilian, was part of a culture of UN personnel having sex with prostitutes — including children. More than a decade on, that culture persists.
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