The rights group said most of the incidents took place on AMISOM bases in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where women come for medical care and to beg for food.
One woman, known as Ayanna, told HRW she was gang raped at gunpoint by six Burundian soldiers after going to their outpatient clinic to get medicine for her sick baby. Rape is rarely punished in Somalia, particularly of vulnerable women living in overcrowded Mogadishu camps housing some , people displaced by war and famine.
Sexual exploitation β the abuse of power or trust for sexual purposes β is in violation of their code of conduct. Women who visited the bases regularly were not checked on their way in and HRW was told that some lived there, ostensibly employed as interpreters. The African Union force deployed to Somalia in to help restore order and defeat the Islamist militant group al Shabaab. It is credited with pushing al Shabaab out of many towns in south-central Somalia, strengthening the hold of the two-year-old Somali federal government.
They are immune from prosecution by the Somali government, with responsibility falling on their own governments. Only two out of the 21 women and girls interviewed filed a complaint, for fear of reprisals, HRW said, while those having sex for money did not want to lose their main source of income.
Editing by Ros Russell rosalind. Visit www. Discover Thomson Reuters. Directory of sites. United States. World News. Katy Migiro. African Mission in Somalia AMISOM soldiers rest on top of an armoured vehicle during a break on a night joint street patrol with local police at the old stadium in Mogadishu, Somalia, November 14,
