OXFAM: MINISTER CALLS IN POLICE
Ex- boss tells of abuse claims in 3 more countries 60% of Britons warn they could stop donations
BRITAIN’S aid minister last night called in the police over the Oxfam scandal amid new claims the charity hushed up sex abuse allegations to spare its reputation.
As the backlash intensified, Penny Mordaunt told global aid bosses that she would hold meetings today with the National Crime Agency.
The NCA will also meet under-fire regulator the Charity Commission to make sure it is doing enough to bring sex abusers to justice. It raises the prospect of prosecutions against aid workers accused of abuse overseas. The meetings come as a senior Oxfam manager admitted last night that she had been aware of past claims of sexual abuse involving the charity’s staff in Asia.
Lan Mercado told the BBC the cases took place in the Philippines, Bangladesh and Nepal before she started as regional director two years ago.
Yesterday officials from the Charity Commission began their statutory inquiry into aid workers’ use of prostitutes in Haiti in 2011, travelling to Oxford for a full day of talks with senior directors and the chairman of Oxfam’s trustees.
On another dramatic day, it emerged that:
Sainsbury’s said it was reviewing its work with Oxfam over the ‘deeply disturbing’ reports;
Stephen Fry joined the celebrity backlash, saying he would not work with the charity again until it got its ‘house in order’;
It emerged that another of Oxfam’s country directors in Haiti had stepped down last year over non-sexual allegations;
The French aid group Medecins Sans Frontiers said 19 staff were fired last year over sexual harassment or abuse;
A poll found more than 60 per cent of people were less likely to donate to Oxfam;
Former aid secretary Priti Patel said she would not be giving money to the charity; and
A UN official warned Britain not to use the sex scandal to ‘shut down’ humanitarian cash.
Yesterday Miss Mordaunt told global aid bosses that revelations around the handling of sex allegations at Oxfam should be a wakeup call to the charity sector.
The International Development Secretary said the charity failed to show moral leadership and had not properly informed donors, regulators and prosecutors about the actions of its workers.
She told an aid conference in Stockholm: ‘No organisation is too big or our work with them too complex for me to hesitate to remove funding from them if we cannot trust them to put the beneficiaries of aid first.’
Miss Mordaunt said that while investigations were still ongoing, it was clear the ‘culture that allowed this to happen needs to change.’
She added: ‘I am writing to every single charity which receives UK aid, demanding full transparency and to set out assurances about their safeguarding procedures. If our standards are not met, then the British taxpayer will not continue to fund them.’
Miss Mordaunt tore into Oxfam over its response to the revela- tions about aid workers in Haiti. She said: ‘They let perpetrators go. They did not inform donors, their regulator or prosecuting authorities. It was not just the processes and procedures of that organisation that were lacking but moral leadership.’
Oxfam received £31.7million in taxpayer funding in 2016/17. But Miss Mordaunt warned again that millions in taxpayer funding could be cut off. She will today hold talks with NCA director general Lynne Owens to discuss exactly what powers they have and what can be done to bring perpetrators to justice. An NCA spokesman said it had a number of powers at its disposal to investigate sexual offences committed outside the UK.
The NCA will also be meeting the Charity Commission this week ‘to assure ourselves that appropriate action has been taken with all the safeguarding material in their possession’.
Yesterday Oxfam regional director for Asia Miss Mercado said she was aware of past claims of sexual abuse involving the charity’s staff in the region between 2009 and 2013 but insisted it was ‘not comparable’ to what happened in Haiti. She said the allegations went largely unreported publicly and had been dealt with internally ‘according to specified policies’.
Although the situation should not be defined as a ‘cover-up’, she said charities such as Oxfam were too bothered about ‘reputational risk’. ‘Haiti has taught us we need to do a lot more,’ she told the BBC. She said more should be done to alert authorities and other potential employers about allegations.
‘But the way to manage reputational risk is not to keep silent. We need to be thinking about the reputation of the sector as a whole, she added.’ On LBC radio, former international development secretary Miss Patel said it was a ‘personal choice’ to give to charity, adding: ‘I have to say candidly, I would not give money to Oxfam in light of what I know.’
A Charity Commission spokesman said it intended to publish a statement about the scope of its statutory inquiry today.
But yesterday Purna Sen, policy director at UN Women, hit out at Miss Mordant – saying the answer was not to ‘shut down organisations doing really important work, but to examine our own practices – whether that’s the UN or the British Government.’
She said in the UK women had been abused in Parliament and in the care system.
‘Lacking in moral leadership’