MSF aid workers in Africa ‘used prostitutes’: BBC report

Aid workers for charity Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) used prostitutes in Africa, a BBC report said Thursday citing anonymous whistleblowers who also reported boasts of trading medicine for sex.

The NGO said it took the allegations seriously but said it had been unable to confirm the claims and urged anyone with information to come forward.

The allegations follow a crisis at British charity Oxfam over claims that its workers used prostitutes while stationed in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

A former employee based in MSF’s London office told the BBC she had seen a senior staff member bring girls back to MSF accommodation while posted in Kenya.

“The girls were very young and rumored to be prostitutes,” she said, adding that it was “implicit” that they were there for sex.

She said some of the older, longstanding male aid workers took advantage of their positions. “I felt that, with some of the older guys, there was definitely an abuse of power,” she said. “They’d been there for a long time and took advantage of their exalted status as a Western aid worker.”

She questioned what the charity knew, saying: “There’s definitely a feeling that certain predatory men were seen as too big to fail.”

Another female employee who worked with HIV patients in central Africa said the use of local sex workers was widespread.

“There was this older colleague, who actually moved a woman into the (charity) compound. It was pretty obvious that she was a prostitute but he’d call her his girlfriend,” she said.

In a statement, the agency said, “We do not tolerate abuse, harassment or exploitation within MSF.”