Protect the children

PRoFeSSoR Andrew macLeod makes vital points about the protection of children (mail), but in the reporting of the oxfam scandal, there are dangers of hypocrisy and damage to vulnerable people.

I have been involved in aid work for 30 years. I was as close to the children of bosnia on the ground during the war as anyone.

The prostitution and trafficking rackets macLeod described were supported by UN military and police forces, rather than by Unicef, UNhcR or aid workers. And moldova does not neighbour bosnia.

I have worked with hundreds of colleagues and volunteers and many thousands of vulnerable children.

The overriding abuse of children who are victims of war has come from our politicians failing to protect their lives and safety, driving them into destitution and sometimes prostitution — in bosnia, as in Syria and Lebanon, where I work now.

I have had to deal with two cases of sexual misconduct during my years of aid work, neither involving children. Save the children, which has 24,000 staff, recorded 31 cases of misconduct last year, or one in 774. Around 4,000 mPs and staff work at Westminster; one in five have reported harassment.

Aid workers don’t deserve to be told to ‘up our game’ by politicians who have miserably failed the children we serve. Professor NIGEL OSBORNE,

Edinburgh. The problem at oxfam is not that they had a few bad apples, but that they failed to act when allegations of abuse were made.

Good works in the past do not mean it can be forgiven for appalling behaviour by staff, lapses in vetting, serious failings when abuse is reported and a mindset that the reputation of the charity must always be protected over the fate of victims or whistle-blowers.

ROLF KITCHING, Gosport, Hants. JUDGING by the size of the salaries and pensions paid to senior oxfam staff, it would appear the maxim is: charity begins at our home.

K. AKEHURST, Scholar Green, Cheshire.