The alleged lapses, detailed in a confidential ICMC report obtained by NEWSWEEK, weren’t the first. Last fall the UNHCR shelved a report by one of its own experts that accused 67 aid workers from 40 agencies of extorting sex from teenage girls in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Though news reports confirmed the study’s allegations, High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers disparaged it as hearsay, and the expert soon lost her U.N. contract. “There will be no investigations in other countries,” Lubbers told NEWSWEEK last month. Still, says Save the Children’s Paul Nolan, “this is not over, by a long shot.” At UNHCR headquarters, problems in Zambia are rumored, and an investigative team visited Namibia last week–likely a sign of more trouble.
