UK troops stationed abroad pay for sex without sanctions

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Featured Story: UK troops stationed abroad pay for sex 'day in, day out' without sanctions

by Sian Norris

The UK military is failing to enforce its "zero tolerance" ban on sexual exploitation abroad, with campaigners claiming soldiers stationed overseas are regularly paying for sex and raping and abusing local young women.

An investigation by openDemocracy has found that not a single serving personnel was found to have paid for sex or otherwise "engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse" since it was banned under the military's Zero Tolerance Policy in November 2022.

The policy was introduced after allegations of murder, rape and sexual abuse by UK troops in Kenya. It states that troops stationed abroad "are prohibited from undertaking transactional sex at all times", adding: "Transactional sex is a form of sexual exploitation … because the use of sex workers will frequently be exploitative."

But Phelister Abdalla from the Kenya Sex Workers' Alliance (KESWA) told openDemocracy that the abuse by UK soldiers is "still happening".

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"Men from the British army are still paying for sex and their treatment of women has not changed. They know this law has passed in the UK but they still do it. It is unfair to say the army is not paying for sex, they are paying for sex day in and day out.

"The British Army cannot make the law and be silent about it, when they are paying for sex and abusing our women," she added. "This is white men and Black women, white skin and Black skin. How can women report the coloniser?"

Abdalla alleged that British soldiers gang raped a girl earlier this year, after one of them paid for sex.

"If the ban was in the UK, then it would be implemented, but because it is in Kenya no one is enforcing it and no one is protecting the girls," Abdalla said. "There is no information or education about the ban in the local community so girls do not know about it."

Over 10 months, openDemocracy submitted more than a dozen Freedom of Information requests to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to determine the extent of transactional sex in the military since the Zero Tolerance policy was introduced in November 2022. Our initial requests were refused on the grounds that transactional sex is not a criminal offence and therefore is not investigated and recorded by service police.

openDemocracy then submitted numerous requests for breaches of the transactional sex ban recorded by the MoD's Joint Personnel Administration system, which records non-criminal investigations. We were told the data is not stored in a way that is retrievable under the cost limit imposed by the FOI Act.

Finally, a request made by openDemocracy in July into breaches of the Zero Tolerance policy was answered in October. The response confirmed that no serving personnel were found to have "engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse" between November 2022 and March 2024.

During this time, at least 24 soldiers stationed in Kenya have been investigated over allegations they paid local women for sex, the former Conservative MP Andrew Murrison confirmed to Parliament in June. None of the allegations were upheld.

The MoD confirmed to openDemocracy that every allegation of transactional sex will be responded to, no matter where the allegation takes place. The policy has a presumption of discharge for anyone found to be buying sex when deployed outside the UK.

Esther Nkoji's 21-year-old aunt Agnes Wanjiru was allegedly murdered by a British soldier stationed in the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) in 2012. She described openDemocracy's findings as "shameful" and said that soldiers are ignoring the ban to exploit local women for sex as they know there will be no consequences.

"The soldiers are not following the policies because they feel entitled when they are in Kenya," Nkoji told openDemocracy. "At the end of the day, they know they can get away with it. If they knew they would be punished, then they might not be committing these crimes."

No one has been arrested or charged for Wanjiru's murder, and the British Army has been accused of covering up her death.

Nkoji described the British army's attitude as a form of "neo-colonialism".

"For a woman who is Black – they don't care," she said. "There is still colonialism in Kenya even 60 years after independence."

Further evidence of soldiers ignoring the transactional sex ban was shared in an ITV documentary about the abuse of local Kenyan women by men stationed at BATUK, which aired last month.

The filmmakers covertly recorded a British soldier admitting soldiers are continuing to pay for sex while stationed in Kenya. "The seniors, sergeants, warrant officers, RSMs [regimental sergeant majors], colour sergeants, they will all cheat on their wives and fuck out here because it's a break," he said.

"Boys will be boys," the man added, describing the ban as a "grey area".

Kenyan journalists have also reported on abuse against local sex workers by British army personnel since the ban. The Nation newspaper reportedthat a woman called Alice was beaten by an army client and had a glass bottle inserted into her vagina. For Alice, the situation is complicated as the army is her source of income. "Yes, I have been abused by British soldiers," she told the Nation's Nicholas Komu and Mercy Mwende. "But I don't think you should write about that. If you expose the bad things they do, they will leave."

"We still need to earn," agreed Abdalla, whose organisation KESWA campaigns to end abuse against sex workers. "The soldiers use the law to intimidate the girls so they don't report any violence. The British army should sit down with the sex worker community and come up with a plan to end the violence, because this ban does not work."

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: "The defence secretary and the chief of the general staff have discussed the alarming allegations of unacceptable behaviour by Service Personnel deployed to Kenya. We take these allegations extremely seriously and the Army will launch an inquiry into the conduct of those who have been deployed to Kenya.

"We expect the highest standards from our personnel, are committed to preventing sexual exploitation in any form and, through our Zero-Tolerance policies, will hold to account anyone found to be involved.

"The Royal Military Police and BATUK work closely with the Kenyan authorities, local community, and county leadership to swiftly address any concerns, with the Defence Serious Crime Command investigating any allegations of serious or complex crime where necessary."

Global abuse

As well as prohibiting soldiers from paying for sex, the Zero Tolerance policy also sought to crack down on criminal sexual offences and "unacceptable sexual behaviour" by military personnel. The latter covers a range of inappropriate behaviour such as sexual comments or public nudity.

Though the Ministry of Defence recorded no breaches of the policy regarding sexual exploitation, which are more serious offences based on abuse of power and exchanging sex for goods or money, it told openDemocracy via FOI that at least 184 troops have been fired over breaches relating to criminal sexual offences and unacceptable sexual behaviour since the policy was introduced in 2022. At least 27 were sentenced for sex offences.

openDemocracy's analysis of MoD data reveals that military police also investigated 466 reports of sexual assaults committed by serving personnel outside of the UK between 2015 and 2022.

These included 154 investigations in Germany, 63 in Cyprus, 29 in the Falklands, as well as 19 in Canada and nine in Gibraltar. A further 192 sexual assaults were investigated where the location was recorded as "other". An FOI request revealed at least one of those 192 sexual offences was recorded in Kosovo, where British personnel serve as part of a multi-national force to ensure security and stability; in Bosnia where they still form part of the peacekeeping mission; and in Afghanistan, where British troops were stationed until 2021. It is not known if the victims were military personnel or civilians.

Nineteen of the investigations concerned sexual offences committed in Kenya, with six relating to complaints involving civilians. Such figures, warns lawyer Kelvin Kubai who works with Kenyan victims impacted by a range of British military abuses, are likely the tip of the iceberg.

"There is no room for local women to get justice," Kubai told openDemocracy, adding that the victims include sex workers. "There is no way for women to report and document the abuse. We have no accessible office to bring forward claims, other than the local police, and they cannot begin an investigation because of jurisdiction issues."

Kubai warned that women are "denied a channel to bring these injustices to light, due to jurisdiction issues. So many times the army has claimed sovereign immunity and so victims cannot bring their cases to the UK or Kenyan courts, and they have no avenue to redress. It is a great injustice to deny people a channel for redress."

The MoD confirmed that BATUK has established relationships with Kenyan Police who work with the Royal Military Police (RMP) stationed at the base. Two British liaison officers provide a two-way link between the RMP and the local force, while BATUK's commander also meets with the chief of police to offer assistance when necessary.

A line of Kenyan women hold up a banner reading — Kenyan women protest following widespread allegations of British military abuse.

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Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images

One local woman who worked at BATUK's Nyati barracks, Ann, told openDemocracy how she was fired after reporting that she and her colleagues had been sexually abused by British soldiers.

Ann last year submitted a statement to Kenya's Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations, describing how soldiers "began treating us in an inhumane way. Cases of sexual harassment were too many. We used to be harassed in the toilets." She explained that if she or her colleagues spoke out, "they were victimised and chased away".

Ann had previously reported the abuse to the local police in 2016, and openDemocracy has seen a copy of the confirmation she was given following her report. Three years later, she also reported the abuse to BATUK. Her statement to the Parliamentary Committee explained how "in 2019 I mastered courage and talked to one of my superiors. I informed him of the sexual harassment and how I was taken advantage of."

Following her intervention, Ann says she was let go from her job.

"The thing is very painful," Ann told openDemocracy. "I have tried a lot to get justice and it did not work. I was harassed, and there is no justice."

ITV filmmakers spoke to 15-year-old Eve who reported being gang raped by British soldiers stationed at BATUK when she was 14. Eve described how "to my surprise, there were seven people. So they started using me. This one finished, this one came."

Eve told her friend about the assault, who said: "There is nothing you can do. They have money and you don't."

Another woman, Faith, told ITV how she was raped by a group of six men after agreeing to go back to a house with one British soldier. She spoke to the filmmakers less than two weeks after the incident, in March this year. "They just do what they want, and then they go," Faith said.

"I was thinking so many things," she said. "Like, what if they killed me? What if maybe something worse than this happens?"

Ann's, Eve's and Faith's stories form part of a long history of allegations of British military abuse in Kenya. Between 1965 and 2001, there were multiple reports of rape in the Umoja and Samburu regions of the country, with Amnesty International estimating a total of 650 rapes allegedly committed by British soldiers over the same time period.

In 1997, it was alleged that 30 women were gang raped at knifepoint by British soldiers in Archers Post, and women described how soldiers would prey on them as they went about their daily lives, raping them as they collected water and firewood. One woman, quoted in a report published by Kenya Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Committee, described being raped when she was three months pregnant, which caused her to miscarry.

In 2007, following a three year investigation, a report by the MoD said there was no reliable evidence to support charges the British military raped hundreds of women in the east African country. The report was criticised by Kenyan women's groups and MPs.

"It is a sad moment because the British army does not accept that they are responsible for the sexual attacks against us," Rebecca Lolosoli of the Umoja Waso women group told the news agency Reuters, following the report's publication.