Oxfam won’t seek Uk aid till it overcomes sex scandal
The Pink House, scene of alleged orgies in Haiti, and inset, Mikelange Gabo OXFAM said last night it will not seek any more UK aid money until it has resolved its sex scandal.
International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the charity had agreed not to bid for more cash until it can meet the “high standards” she has set it.
The charity’s staff have been accused of using prostitutes after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, staging orgies in a rented complex known as the Pink House.
Ms Mordaunt has demanded that Oxfam makes clear how it will handle any further allegations.
She also said it must report staff members involved to their national governments and co-operate fully with Haitian authorities.
Oxfam has now confirmed that it is complying.
But earlier, its chief executive Mark Goldring, 60, said that criticism was “out of proportion”.
He said: “The intensity and the ferocity of the attack makes you wonder, what did we do? We murdered babies in their cots?
“The scale and the intensity of the attacks feels out of proportion to the level of culpability. I struggle to understand it. You think, ‘My God, there’s something going on there’. Anything we say is being manipulated. Even apologies make matters worse.”
Yesterday, Haitian Mikelange Gabo said she had sex with Oxfam’s director in Haiti, Belgian Roland van Hauwermeiren, now 68, when she was 17. The age of consent in Haiti is 18.
Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima admitted bosses had no idea how many sex predators they employed. She said: “We have a problem, I have apologised and we are going to root it out.”