Warnings about predator were ignored 12 years ago
AN OFFICIAL at the British Department for International Aid and Development failed to heed a warning about the Oxfam chief at the centre of the aid scandal, according to a whistleblower.
Having raised concerns over Roland van Hauwermeiren – who left Oxfam after being accused of using prostitutes – the whistleblower says the department responded: ‘People can change.’
The female humanitarian employee who raised the alarm worked under Roland van Hauwermeiren for health charity Merlin – now part of Save The Children – in Liberia in the early 2000s.
When she discovered he had become Oxfam’s country director in Chad in 2006, she reported claims about his past misconduct, but says her words fell on deaf ears. Mr van Hauwermeiren went on to work for Oxfam in Haiti, where he was forced out after being accused of sleeping with prostitutes, a claim he denies. Mr van Hauwermeiren, country director for Merlin between 2002 and 2004 in Liberia, reportedly used the charity’s drivers to ferry him to clubs to meet prostitutes.
He has admitted dancing with prostitutes in Liberia but denies he had sex with them.
Posting in a Facebook group used by aid workers, the whistleblower wrote: ‘I was only 24, in my first field job and I shouted and shouted, even though it was so rife in Monrovia that his behaviour only marginally stood out as crossing a line.’