Aid agency reckoning after sexual exploitation allegations

It’s despicable that aid workers or UN peacekeepers would take advantage of the chaos found in impoverished or unstable nations wracked by natural or man-made disasters to sexually exploit that country’s often desperate citizens.

Many experts describe the recent scandal engulfing Oxfam as merely the tip of the iceberg. The aid organization partially covered up sexual misconduct by seven staffers, who were fired or allowed to resign in 2011 for hiring prostitutes, some possibly minors, in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake there.

Certainly one doesn’t have to look far to find other examples — going back decades — of sexual abuse and exploitation of vulnerable populations by international aid workers or UN peacekeepers.

Members of various NGOs have allegedly traded food and relief supplies, medicines, even grades in makeshift schools, for sexual favours.

In 2007, Sri Lankan peacekeepers deployed to Haiti by the UN were accused of running a child sex ring.

Critics say a lack of accountability, including serious consequences for perpetrators, as well as a culture of silence in much of the international aid community, has meant an ugly problem has festered for far too long. Countries unable to cope with natural or man-made disasters are often chaotic places with weak native governmental oversight, critics add, making them perfect places for the unscrupulous to take advantage.

The dilemma for many nations receiving emergency aid is often that while they want such abuses exposed and stopped, at the same time they urgently need all the international assistance they can get.

The backlash to the Oxfam scandal, in which thousands of people have stopped donating — at least temporarily — to the well-known charity, has the potential to further hurt recipient countries.

Stronger policies of accountability and transparency are essential for NGOs and UN aid agencies.

Also imperative — and sometimes now missing altogether — are robust systems to screen the histories of potential aid workers. Observers also rightly argue that people in countries like Haiti who are receiving aid need structured processes for filing complaints and asserting their rights.

Similar to what has been happening with the #MeToo movement, to tackle this pervasive rot — one that’s apparently been an open secret in the aid community — we must talk openly about the problem.

People shouldn’t stop giving to international charities.

But donors should demand NGOs be transparent, and accountable, for their people’s actions on the ground.