Aid agency scandal shakes public trust

EDITORIAL: WHAT OTHERS THINK

Even in this time of #MeToo revelations, allegations of misconduct against seven former aid workers with Oxfam Great Britain are particularly shocking.

After all, aid agency workers are in countries to protect vulnerable populations. Anything less cannot be tolerated.

Sadly, though, it appears it was. As was reported last week, seven former Oxfam staff members who worked in Haiti in 2011 faced allegations of misconduct that included using prostitutes and downloading pornography. According to one report, children were among those sexually exploited by aid workers.

Almost as appalling is the way Oxfam GB quietly fired four of the seven and allowed the other three to resign. By doing so, the predators not only escaped being charged by authorities, they could find work again with other aid agencies.

How did this happen to a respected international charity like Oxfam? Workers who are now speaking out anonymously, lest they be fired, say there was a “culture of impunity.”

No wonder. According to Oxfam GB’s former deputy chief executive Penny Lawrence, the allegations of sexual misconduct were first raised about the Oxfam staff in an earlier mission in Chad. But Lawrence, who resigned on Monday, says they were allowed to work in Haiti anyway.

All this is raising questions of how widespread secret sexual misconduct is among aid workers in general.

Alarmingly, according to many, including the U.K.’s former international development secretary, the Oxfam scandal is just the “tip of the iceberg.” Even Oxfam GB admits the issue of sexual abuse by aid workers is “an issue for the sector.”

That has other aid organizations desperately trying to distance themselves from Oxfam GB, fearing they, too, may lose government funding and donations.

Oxfam Canada, for example, has gone to pains to emphasize it never worked with Oxfam GB in Haiti, but only with Oxfam Quebec. On the agency’s website, executive director Julie Delahanty decried those “few privileged men . . . who betrayed our decades of work on social justice.”

Still, it may not be enough. The public trust is shaken and more revelations are sure to come out. Anything less than zero tolerance for sexual misconduct in the entire aid industry cannot be accepted, or financially supported.

An editorial from the Toronto Star (distributed by The Canadian Press)