Oxfam cared about its brand more than victims

OXFAM was far more concerned about its reputation than the risk that aid recipients would be abused, the charity’s former head of safeguarding said.

William Anderson told MPs that measures to prevent sexual exploitation were seen as merely a ‘tick-box’ exercise.

Too many bosses arrogantly thought there was no way abuse could happen at Oxfam – because it was such a ‘moral’ organisation.

This attitude meant it was ‘institutionally blind’ to the fact that it was exactly the sort of organisation where abuse could ‘fester’.

The committee’s report was critical of a number of Oxfam’s actions before the revelation that in 2011 its workers had used prostitutes in disaster-affected Haiti.

It pointed out that even after this, Oxfam’s code of conduct of 2012 did not ban the use of prostitutes – although it bans them now.

It said it agreed with the statement by former aid secretary Andrew Mitchell that Oxfam had abided by the spirit but not the letter of the law when it did not disclose fully the extent of the Haiti scandal.

Dame Barbara Stocking, the charity’s former chief executive, was criticised for her ‘tenuous’ handling of the case. Mr Anderson, Oxfam’s first safeguarding coordinator, told MPs in written evidence that the charity appeared more interested in PR than protecting the vulnerable.

‘Safeguarding was only viewed in the abstract and was about ticking boxes rather than seriously looking at the dynamics that foster abuse,’ he wrote.

‘When I talked about risk it was about protecting the vulnerable, whereas most risk conversations were about reputational risk and how to protect the Oxfam brand.

‘The belief was that that sort of thing was unlikely to happen in such a moral, professional organisation.’

Last night Caroline Thomson, Oxfam’s chairman of trustees, said: ‘Today’s report makes for incredibly painful reading for me, for everyone at Oxfam and for the aid sector as a whole.

‘Oxfam exists to help improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people; we know we failed to protect vulnerable women in Haiti, and we accept we should have reported more clearly at the time – for that we are truly sorry.

‘Since February, as part of our comprehensive action plan, we have tripled funding for safeguarding, established an independent whistleblowing helpline and committed to publish details of safeguarding cases twice a year.’