A former UN official has been jailed for sexually abusing children in Nepal, officials said Tuesday, following a trial underscoring the country's growing appeal for foreign paedophiles.

Peter John Dalglish, 62, from Canada, a formerly high-profile humanitarian worker, was sentenced on Monday to two terms of nine and six years in two cases after being ­convicted last month.

Thakur Trital, a district court official, told AFP that Dalglish had been sentenced for nine years for abusing a 12-year-old boy and seven years for molesting another 14-year-old.

Dalglish was arrested in April last year in Kavrepalanchowk district, near Kathmandu, by Nepal's Central Bureau of Investigation. 

The aid worker, who in 2016 was awarded the Order of Canada - the country's second-highest civilian honor - made his name as a humanitarian worker advocating for street children, child laborers and those affected by war.

In the last decade, Dalglish held key positions in UN agencies, including as chief for UN Habitat in Afghanistan in 2015. 

Weak law enforcement has made Nepal notorious for sexual predators, with several arrests and convictions in recent years. In 2015 a Canadian orphanage volunteer, Ernest MacIntosh, 71, was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a disabled 15-year-old boy, while in 2010 French charity worker Jean-Jacques Haye was convicted of raping 10 children at a Kathmandu orphanage.