“Sex with anyone under the age of 18 is prohibited.”

“Exchanging money, goods or employment for sex is prohibited.”

“Zero tolerance for sexual exploitation.”

But the Castors neighborhood is a shocking illustration of how brazen the peacekeepers became. Residents say that troops skulked around the neighborhood looking for girls during the day and sneaked out at night to meet them in rented rooms or abandoned houses, or to take them into the barracks. Moroccan troops broke holes in the perimeter wall of their bases, witnesses said, so that they could leave undetected.

“There are so many girls here who slept with [peacekeepers],” said Thierry Karpandgei, a resident. “You can see their babies all over here.”

Most of the alleged cases of abuse and exploitation occurred at the peak of the conflict, in 2014 and 2015, when the fighting pushed residents to the edge of survival.

[Despite harsh conditions, life continues inside the Central African Republic’s camp for the displaced]

“There was no way to get food or money at the time, and they promised to help us if we slept with them,” said Rosine Mengue, who explained that she received the equivalent of $4 in each of two encounters with a peacekeeper. She was 16 at the time. She spent the money on cassava leaves, which fed her family for two days. Mengue, who is now 18, told The Washington Post it could use her full name.

Like the rest of the women, Mengue never heard from the man after she became pregnant, she said. He went back to Morocco. She dropped out of school and is raising her son in her family’s home, surrounded by charred palm trees and the ruins of half-destroyed buildings.

“We don’t have enough food for everyone,” her mother said.

U.N. officials have said that peacekeeping contingents from around 10 countries have been implicated in the sex-abuse scandal.

Most of the women interviewed by The Post said they did not report their cases to the United Nations because they felt ashamed and did not think the organization would be able to help them. One of the women did approach the United Nations seeking financial assistance for her baby after his father returned to the Congo Republic. But U.N. officials say she did not specify that she had received money from the peacekeeper — as she later told The Post — so the case was not recorded as involving exploitation. Such an act would have violated U.N. rules for peacekeepers on sexual relationships.