OXFAM AID TAP TURNED OFF
£30m handouts blocked until charity proves it’s changed, says minister
ANY new Government funding for Oxfam was dramatically stopped last night by the International Development Secretary following the sex exploitation scandal.
After a week of shocking revelations, Penny Mordaunt announced the charity would receive no new UK foreign aid until it could prove it met the ‘high standards’ she expected.
Miss Mordaunt said that while there were ‘hundreds of good, brave and compassionate people working for Oxfam’, they had been ‘poorly served’ by the charity’s leadership.
The move is a huge blow to Oxfam, which last year received around £30million from the Government, and will pile pressure on its beleaguered chief executive Mark Goldring.
It follows a meeting this week when the charity attempted to reassure Miss Mordaunt that it had a grip on the scandal, which has led to ramifications through the entire aid sector.
Meanwhile, further allegations emerged yesterday, threatening to intensify a crisis which has already severely dented Oxfam’s reputation. On another dramatic day:
New claims emerged from an anonymous Oxfam worker that she was twice sexually and physically assaulted by colleagues in Haiti and South Sudan.
The head of Oxfam International conceded that she couldn’t guarantee there were no other sexual predators working for the charity.
Mr Goldring claimed that the accusations against the charity were motivated by an ‘antiaid agenda’, adding that it was not as if aid workers had ‘murdered babies in their cots’.
Oxfam has been rocked by the worst week in its history following reports of sexual exploitation by aid workers in Haiti.
It has vowed to publish the 2011 internal investigation into staff involved in sexual and other misconduct in the country. It said that the names of the men involved have already been shared with the Haitian authorities.
Following discussions with the Department for International Development, Oxfam yesterday said it would not seek further Government funding. Miss Mordaunt said: ‘Oxfam has agreed to withdraw from bidding for any new UK Government funding until DFID is satisfied that they can meet the high standards we expect of our partners.
‘We have been very clear that we will not work with any organisation that does not live up to the high standards on safeguarding and protection that we require.
‘I am very aware that there are hundreds of good, brave and compassionate people working for Oxfam around the world. They have been poorly served by Oxfam’s leadership team too.’
In an attempt to address the crisis yesterday the head of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, announced an independent commission to review the charity’s culture and practices.
But she conceded that she could not guarantee that there are no more sexual predators working for the charity, although it would ‘build a new culture that doesn’t tolerate that behaviour’.
She described the allegations as a ‘stain’ on the charity ‘that will shame us for years’.
Last night a former Oxfam worker told the BBC that she had been abused by colleagues in Haiti and South Sudan in 2010. Describing one assault, she told the BBC: ‘He literally just pinned me up against the wall. It was groping me, grabbing me, kissing me and I was just trying to shove him off.’
She said he ‘got mad’ when she succeeded and threw a glass at her. Later, she was had to travel with him and he attacked her again and her roommate had to intervene, she said.
The same worker, who declined to be named, was also assaulted at a New Year’s Eve party in South Sudan, also in 2010. ‘I went into my room I was starting to undress and go to sleep and he just walked in, shoved me on the bed, tried to rip my clothes,’ she said.
She said nobody came to help her, despite her screams, but she eventually managed to fight him off. A colleague who heard her later asked if she was OK.
Singer Tallia Storm has become the latest celebrity supporter to quit Oxfam over the scandal, following Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actress Minnie Driver.