Bosses ‘ignored my abuse warnings’
THE Oxfam scandal widened dramatically last night after claims of sex abuse spread to its charity shops in the UK.
A whistleblower revealed that the beleaguered charity has faced multiple allegations, including alleged abuse of children by its volunteers.
And it emerged Oxfam in Britain had not carried out criminal record checks on the 23,000 volunteers who staff its 650 shops. The Mail has seen figures showing 123 alleged incidents of sexual harassment have been investigated in its stores in just nine years.
Separately, in a statement to RTÉ News, the Irish arm of the organisation said it wished to ‘completely condemn any form of abuse against the people we work to protect and support’.
Oxfam Ireland said it has a zerotolerance approach to sexual misconduct and has several safeguarding policies in operation to prevent harassment and abuse.
The charity also said its staff are encouraged to raise any concerns they may have, without reprisal.
Helen Evans, the charity’s former safeguarding chief in the UK, said she had begged senior staff, ministers and regulators to act on sexual abuse allegations she had uncovered. She also revealed
‘Didn’t adequately respond’
Oxfam staff had faced allegations of trading aid for sex, attempted rape, sexual exploitation, sexual coercion and abuse. A survey found more than one in ten staff from programmes in three separate countries had seen or experienced sexual assaults.
Yesterday, the scandal, which began with revelations that Oxfam workers had used prostitutes in Haiti in 2011, claimed its first scalp. The charity’s UK deputy Penny Lawrence said she was ashamed and took full responsibility. However UK chief executive Mark Goldring was refusing to step down.
Ms Evans told Channel 4 News she was concerned ‘for those in senior leadership positions who knew the scale of what we were dealing with and in my view did not adequately respond to that’.
She told the programme that within a year of starting her work, the scale of the problem had become clear. One case concerned a shop manager who is alleged to have attempted to force a young volunteer to drop charges against an adult male volunteer who was said to have assaulted them both.
Ms Evans said she made it clear that Oxfam was doing too little to protect children from harm. She said: ‘These are 14-year-old children and if parents knew that those adults were not checked they would not be sending those children into those shops.’
She claimed the senior leadership team failed to recognise the importance of her concerns and did not adequately respond.
In despair, Ms Evans quit her position, and went to the UK’s Charity Commission with her concerns. She said the regulator did not even return her phone calls until it finally launched an inquiry at the end of 2017 – two years after she first sounded the alarm.
A spokesman for the Charity Commission said: ‘We took the concerns Miss Evans raised very seriously and engaged with Oxfam on a formal regulatory basis to address them.’
Last night Mr Goldring admitted his organisation had not acted quickly enough after Ms Evans raised her concerns. He said criminal record checks were introduced but admitted that not all volunteers are checked. ‘I certainly apologise for not acting fast enough; I think we did take them seriously and we responded on many different fronts,’ he said. ‘Many of the incidents in shops were actually perpetrated by members of the public not by Oxfam staff but it’s absolutely important that we report them and we take them seriously.’
Last night Oxfam said in a statement it had taken action to improve safety in its shop network. The spokesman said: ‘We ensure all staff are trained in working with young people and vulnerable adults, have appropriate background checks and know how to respond to any issues raised.’