Unmask aid workers so we can put them on trial, says minister
AID workers suspected of having sex with underage prostitutes in Haiti must be named so they can be prosecuted, Oxfam was told last night.
International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt ordered the charity to send all the evidence of alleged criminal behaviour by its staff to a host of law enforcement agencies.
Files on each suspect are being sent to Haiti and the countries where the aid workers come from. The process paves the way for prosecutions to be considered in the Caribbean state or in the home countries of suspects.
Miss Mordaunt described the behaviour of the aid workers as ‘appalling’ and said Oxfam must demonstrate ‘the moral leadership necessary… to rebuild the trust of the British people’.
Senior figures at the charity, including chairman Caroline Thomson and chief executive Mark Goldring, yesterday made a ‘full and unqualified apology’ to Britain and Haiti at a private meeting with Miss Mordaunt.
‘ They spoke of the deep sense of disgrace and shame that they and their organisation feel about what has happened, and set out the actions they will now take to put things right and prevent such horrific abuses happening in future,’ she said. ‘ In the 21st century, it is utterly despicable that sexual exploitation and abuse continues to exist in the aid sector.
‘Oxfam assured me they are cooperating fully with the authorities in Haiti and will do so in any other country where abuse has been exposed.’
Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s ambassador to the UK, said his country is ‘ shocked and appalled’ at the charity for allowing senior staff to leave without being investigated by local police.
He warned that a paedophile ring might have been operating in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake and threatened to take legal action against Oxfam.
In a furious broadside at the charity, Mr Edmond said: ‘That crime should never have been committed. Your mission was not to exploit, to sexually exploit those girls.
‘Your mission was not to go to solicit prostitutes, your mission was to go and help those people in need, not to use your power and advantage to exploit them.’
He called on the charity and the British Government to identify those suspected of wrongdoing so they can be prosecuted ‘in the international system’.
Oxfam has been accused of covering up claims that its aid workers used prostitutes in Haiti in 2011.
Prostitution is illegal in Haiti, as is having sex with someone under the age of 18.
Four members of staff were dismissed and three, including the charity’s country director Roland van Hauwermeiren, resigned before the end of a 2011 investigation.
Oxfam did not inform the Department for International Development at the time that the case involved sexual misconduct.
Mr Edmond added: ‘For the executives to know these crimes were committed and to allow those people to leave without informing the authorities is wrong. We might be dealing with a paedophile ring. It was a crime. Prostitution is illegal and we believe they may have been underage kids.’
On Sunday, Mr Goldring claimed the charity did not report the suspects – none of whom are British – to Haitian police because it feared this would endanger the women involved. Mr Edmond said such a response was ‘wrong and really insulting’.
‘Oxfam should recognise they failed and showed a lack of leadership,’ he said. ‘How do they know the women would have been endangered?’
The charity’s deputy chief executive was forced to quit her £99,000-a-year job yesterday after taking ‘full responsiof bility’ for the sordid behaviour of her staff. Penny Lawrence said she was ‘ashamed’ the alleged use of underage prostitutes took place ‘on her watch’ and admitted that the charity ‘failed to adequately act upon’ concerns by whistleblowers.
The former teacher shares a £1.4million home with her family in Summertown, a suburb Oxford. Her husband, Graham Bray, 61, is chief operating officer at charity Young Lives.
Miss Lawrence joined the charity in 2006 as programme director before being appointed deputy chief executive in 2016.
It was during her tenure as programme director that Oxfam staff allegedly committed sex offences in Chad in 2006 and later in Haiti.
Mr van Hauwermeiren was in charge of the Chad mission. Despite allegations of illegal behaviour by his team, he was later appointed to the Haiti job by Miss Lawrence. ‘It is now clear these allegations – involving the use of prostitutes and which related to behaviour of both the country director and members of his team in Chad – were raised before he moved to Haiti,’ she said.
‘As program director at the time, I am ashamed that this happened on my watch and I take full responsibility.
‘I am desperately sorry for the harm and distress this has caused to Oxfam’s supporters, the wider development sector and most of all the vulnerable people who trusted us.’
The announcement is likely to increase pressure on Mr Goldring, who is reported to have said he will resign if the board of trustees ask for his head. The scandal has prompted the Department for International Development to create a new unit to urgently review safeguarding across all parts of the aid sector.
Miss Mordaunt has sent a letter all UK charities working overseas – including Oxfam – to demand they do more ‘to fully protect vulnerable people’.
Andrew MacLeod, the former chief of operations of the UN’s Emergency Coordination Centre, claimed ‘predatory paedophiles’ were now targeting charities to ‘access children’ in the developing world.
Mr MacLeod, who now works for the charity Hear Their Cries, said: ‘The impact of sex tourism laws make it unlawful for anybody to have sex with children under the age of 16 anywhere in the world or aid, abet or support that.
‘What we have seen is that predatory paedophiles are now going to the developing world to get access to children.’
‘Horrific abuses’
‘Used power to exploit them’