WHO workers accused of sex abuse during Ebola outbreak

BENI, Congo — Twenty-one workers for the World Health Organization in Congo have been accused of sexually abusing people during an Ebola outbreak, a WHO-commissioned panel said Tuesday in a report that identified 83 alleged perpetrators connected to the 2018-20 mission.

The panel released its findings months after an Associated Press investigation found senior WHO management was informed of multiple abuse claims in 2019 but failed to stop the harassment and even promoted one of the managers involved.

“This is the biggest finding of sexual abuse perpetrated during a single U.N. initiative in one area or one country during the time-bound period of a U.N. response effort,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of the Code Blue Campaign, which is campaigning to end sexual exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers.

Panel member Malick Coulibaly said investigators uncovered nine rape allegations. The women interviewed said their attackers used no birth control, resulting in some pregnancies. Some women said their rapists had forced them to have abortions, Coulibaly said.

The youngest of the alleged victims, identified in the report only as “Jolianne” and believed to be 13, recounted that a WHO driver stopped on a roadside in the town of Mangina where she was selling phone cards in April 2019 and offered to give her a ride home.

“Instead, he took her to a hotel where she says she was raped by this person,” according to the report.

The panel recommended WHO provide reparations to victims and set up DNA testing to establish paternity and enable women to assert their rights and those of their children.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appointed the panel’s co-chairs to investigate in October after media reports claimed unnamed humanitarian officials sexually abused women during the Ebola outbreak that began in Congo in 2018.

He called the report “harrowing” reading and a “dark day” for the UN. health agency. Tedros said four people have been fired and two placed on administrative leave, but he did not name them.

The WHO chief also declined to say if he would consider resigning; Germany, France and several other European countries nominated Tedros for a second term last week.

Lawrence Gostin, chair of global health law at Georgetown University, said he wouldn’t call for Tedros to resign unless he knew of, or could have reasonably known of such abuse.

Tedros traveled to Congo 14 times during the outbreak, repeatedly said he was personally responsible for the response and publicly commended one of the alleged rapists for his heroic work.

“It is unconscionable that this should ever have happened, and the sheer scale of the sexual assaults is shocking,” Gostin said.