Sex scandal charity hit by further allegations
A TOTAL of 26 fresh allegations of misconduct by Oxfam workers have been made to the charity since the Haiti sex scandal erupted, MPs were told yesterday.
Chief executive Mark Goldring said they ranged from recent incidents to ones dating back to 1995 which were not reported at the time.
Ten concern events in the UK, including seven in the charity’s shops. Not all necessarily entail sexual misconduct.
Mr Goldring, who joined Oxfam in 2013, told the Commons International Development Committee that more than 7,000 donors have cancelled direct debit payments in the past two weeks.
It follows claims of a cover-up over seven Oxfam workers who allegedly held orgies with Haitian prostitutes after the 2010 earthquake.
Mr Goldring apologised for exploitation and also for his own recent comments when he told a newspaper Oxfam was being attacked as if it had “murdered babies in their cots”.
After committee chairman Stephen Twigg said many saw that as “grossly inappropriate”, Mr Goldring replied: “I was under stress.”
He added: “I am sorry, we are sorry, for the damage Oxfam has done both to the people of Haiti but also to wider efforts for aid and development by possibly undermining public support.”
THEY still don’t get it, do they? Appearing in front of MPs, Oxfam boss Mark Goldring made a feeble apology, both for the appalling behaviour of aid workers in Haiti and in clearly not taking the matter seriously enough last week when he said: “The intensity and ferocity of the attack makes you wonder, what did we do? We murdered babies in their cots?”
Perhaps they didn’t murder babies but they did commit a horrendous abuse of trust and since then Mr Goldring has been forced to own up to another 26 reports of recent and historic abuse.
All this mea culpa really reveals, however, is not genuine contrition about the disgusting sense of entitlement that existed at Oxfam (and other aid agencies) but concern that the donations are drying up. Another snippet to emerge yesterday was that 7,000 people have stopped making donations, as well they might. Oxfam has not just let down the most vulnerable people on the planet in their time of greatest need, it has let down its supporters in this country.
Shame on everyone involved.