Sexual abuse of children as young as six by aid workers and United Nations peacekeepers has continued unchecked despite repeated promises to stamp it out, according to a 12-month investigation.
More than half of the children interviewed in three countries, Ivory Coast, South Sudan and Haiti, knew of cases of forced sex with aid staff or peacekeepers.
The assaults were often in return for the very food or protection supposed to be provided to the vulnerable in a crisis.
Similar allegations have dogged UN missions since the organisation sent peacekeepers to Cambodia in the 1990s. However, today's report, from Save The Children, is the first to point the finger at civilian aid staff, including those working for British charities, as well as soldiers.
Its findings suggest a continuing lack of action despite promises to tackle alleged abuse made at a conference of UN officials and aid agencies in December 2006.
Six months after that meeting's stern commitments, 12-year-old "Elizabeth" claimed that she was walking to tend her mother's fields past the camp of a battalion of UN peacekeepers in northwestern Ivory Coast.
