Food-for-sex shock as Irish aid groups admit 20 claims
A TOP charity working in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake has admitted that aid workers traded food for sex and cash with survivors. The admission by World Vision Global will dismay supporters, including Meghan Markle, a global ambassador up to last year, and Irish Game Of Thrones star Liam Cunningham.
A shocked Cunningham told the Irish Mail on Sunday he was not involved with the charity at the time but the victims were ‘the worst suffering among us and the money should go to them’.
The MoS revealed that aid workers paid by World Vision offered aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) for sex.
And some Irish charities have admitted that at least 20 incidents of sexual allegations have been made against workers.
The unsavoury World Vision reports came out after the WFP, a project set up by the United Nations, ordered an external evaluation of the ‘cash and food for work projects,’ run by its partners in September 2011.
Under the programme, people were given about €2.50 a day to dig ditches, clear rubble, sweep streets and clean toilets in camps after the devastating earthquake.
World Vision ordered a Beneficiary Processes Evaluation after a meeting with WFP officials which was completed in 2012.
This revealed that those getting aid, selected by local community leaders, were ‘subject to a level of sexual and financial exploitation’.
An accountability report for the organisation stated: ‘Camp residents were allegedly subject to both sexual and financial exploitation to be included on beneficiary lists. At the same time, corruption and manipulation of the lists for personal gain was a reported problem.’
A spokesperson for WFP confirmed officials discovered ‘worrying irregularities’ and told World Vision to tighten controls.
World Vision said the allegations were taken ‘extremely seriously’ leading to a procedural overhaul. Supporter Cunningham said: ‘I will have to talk to World Vision. If this involves individuals, they should be removed, if it is systemic, that needs to be investigated also.’ Others linked to World Vision include former TV presenter Lorraine Keane and model Roz Purcell, both of whom declined to comment.
As much as €200,000 of Irish Government funding went to World Vision’s Haiti Earthquake appeal in 2011. That same year, €2,428,775 in Government grants went to World Vision Ireland.
An Irish aid group survey by the MoS showed at least 20 cases of sexual allegations at five agencies, while others refused to be transparent. Over the past ten years, two of the biggest agencies, Goal and Concern, have had at least 18 sexual allegations against workers. Concern said it fired three or four staff following investigations and had ‘an average of one to two reports sexual misconduct a year.
Goal has told the MoS that it had an average of one case in each of the eight years since 2010.
Both organisations stressed the cases were handled appropriately and the local authorities had been contacted as required.
The MoS also reported that Oxfam Ireland dismissed a staff member following a safeguarding issue in 2004. Parent body Oxfam International has been embroiled in a scandal over aid workers having sex with prostitutes in Haiti
A World Vision statement said the MoS story omitted key findings from its investigations, which it described publicly and shared with authorities, donors, and journalist, several years ago. It said: ‘Those involved in sexual exploitation were not World Vision staff. They were community volunteers.’
‘Sexual and financial exploitation’