Save the Children drawn into storm as abuse reports to watchdog soar

HUNDREDS of abuse claims involving British charities have been investigated in the aid sector in recent years, new figures reveal.

The Daily Mail can disclose Save the Children has been alerted to 176 incidents involving the potential abuse of children by its workers in three years.

Only a tiny minority were reported to the police, the available data shows. Other cases involving ‘concerns raised against staff members’ were dealt with ‘internally’, resulting in dozens of dismissals or formal warnings.

This is on top of the 26 ‘safeguarding incidents’ – allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse – reported by Oxfam over the past nine years.

Of these, 110 happened abroad and 123 took place in its charity shops. One report relating to Oxfam, from 2006, reveals there had not been a humanitarian response in which the charity had not sacked an aid worker for ‘exploiting or abusing’ beneficiaries.

It even disclosed that staff were not banned from using prostitutes.

The cases of abuse committed by aid workers is part of a wider scandal across Britain’s charity sector.

Over the past six years, almost 5,000 serious incidents involving children and vulnerable adults were reported to the official charity regulator.

Annual incidents reported to the Charity Commission rose three-fold between 2011/12 and 2016/17.

In 2016/17 a total of 1,203 serious safeguarding incidents were reported involving Britain’s charities. The Mail

has seen a report by Oxfam manager Yoma Winder in 2006 which indicates abuse allegations have been going on for years. The Mail can also reveal that the children’s charity Barnardo’s has faced a host of sex abuse allegations. A total of 35 allegations were formally referred to their safeguarding department over the last year – an increase from 20 in 2015/16.

A Barnardo’s spokesman said: ‘We have in place robust systems, policies, procedures and governance arrangements to deal effectively and transparently with any allegations of sexual misconduct or abuse.’ A spokesman for the Charity Commission said last night that safeguarding incidents were under-reported.