Add Category
Updated
Oxfam has been accused of lacking "moral leadership" by the British Government over misconduct involving prostitutes in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
- Oxfam workers accused of paying survivors for sex while in Haiti
- UK Government asked Oxfam to explain why it appeared to cover it up
- Former aid worker says cutting funding not the answer
Some Oxfam workers, including its most senior mission director, have been accused of paying survivors for sex while there.
"I'm deeply ashamed [of] Oxfam's behaviour and everybody, the 25,000 staff and volunteers are compromised by this," CEO Mark Goldring said.
But as well as being a public relations disaster for Oxfam, the scandal could cost them $50 million in government funding.
Britain's international development secretary Penny Mordaunt told the aid agency to front up tomorrow in London to explain why it appeared to cover up a sex scandal.
"I think it is a complete betrayal of both the people that Oxfam were there to help, and also the people that sent them there to do that job — it's a scandal," she said.
"It doesn't matter whether you've got a whistleblowing hotline, it doesn't matter if you've got good safeguarding practices in place.
"If the moral leadership at the top of the organisation isn't there, then we cannot have you as a partner."
But the former minister Priti Patel said she was not surprised.
Ms Patel said it was merely the tip of the iceberg that could involve up to 300 people across a variety of agencies.
"It's well documented in the aid sector, the abuse that has been taking place around the world," she said.
"I'm not just speaking about Oxfam in particular, I'm speaking about this sector.
"Frankly I don't think this about an isolated case with Oxfam, the mechanisms are in place already, the blueprint and the ideas were put forward last year — we should now apply them to the entire aid sector."
Professor Andrew MacLeod, from Hear their Cries Charity, was damning of how organisations dealt with claims.
"I was an aid worker, I spent the 90s in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, I spent the 2000s in Pakistan, Afghanistan — I do know the industry very well," he said.
"The problem is this, you have a lot of white men in positions of power with a lot of wealth going to underprivileged countries where the rule of law has broken down and abuse takes place.
"We've really got to understand, for the mums and dads, your really good viewers who want their taxpayer dollars or their charitable donations to go to good, we have a duty to make sure good is done."
But Professor MacLeod said cutting funding was not the answer. He said predators should be prosecuted by police not simply subject to internal investigations.
Topics: relief-and-aid-organisations, sexual-offences, united-kingdom, haiti, england
First posted