International Development minister Penny Mordaunt has summoned Oxfam bosses to a showdown meeting today to answer serious allegations against charity staff while working for Oxfam in Haiti. Ms Mordaunt said the charity “has failed in it’s moral leadership” and Oxfam’s funding could be terminated if it cannot satisfactorily explain the way it handled claims of serious sexual misconduct against it’s aid workers.
Oxfam received £32 million from the UK government in the last financial year.
On Saturday, The Charity Commission made a statement in response to concerns raised in the media regarding Oxfam:
The allegations reported in the media have absolutely no place in society, and are made all the more shocking by the alleged involvement of charity workers. Charities are rightly held to the highest standards.
In August 2011, Oxfam made a report to the Commission about an ongoing internal investigation into allegations of misconduct by staff members involved in their Haiti programme. It explained that the misconduct related to inappropriate sexual behaviour, bullying, harassment and the intimidation of staff. The report to us stated there had been no allegations, or evidence, of any abuse of beneficiaries. It also made no mention of any potential sexual crimes involving minors. Our approach to this matter would have been different had the full details that have been reported been disclosed to us at the time.
We have written to the charity as a matter of urgency to request further information regarding the events in Haiti in 2011 to establish greater clarity on this matter. This includes a timeline of events, information about when the charity was made aware of specific allegations and the detail of the investigation’s findings and conclusions. This information will be considered as part of an ongoing case regarding the charity’s approach to safeguarding.
It is important that charities engage with the regulator frankly and openly. We must fully understand the allegations that have been made to ensure that we have confidence in the charity’s approach to safeguarding now and in the future.
In a statement issued yesterday, Oxfam said:
In 2011, several Oxfam staff were accused of sexual exploitation and abuse in Haiti during the earthquake response. We have now heard of further allegations about the use of sex workers by Oxfam staff in Chad in 2006. We are shocked and dismayed about these latest revelations. While we can’t corroborate the information from Chad at the moment, it highlights again unacceptable behavior by a small number of people and the need for a sector-wide approach to tackle the problem.
Let us be clear: their behavior was and still is totally unacceptable – an appalling mark against the high values we set for ourselves at Oxfam. This was a case of a group of privileged men abusing those they were meant to protect. They also abused the trust of our supporters and the thousands of dedicated Oxfam staff working around the world to end poverty and injustice.
Oxfam’s priority is to stand with the women and girls who experienced this exploitation, and to ensure that sexual misconduct is rooted out of our organization. Our work advancing women’s rights, especially in situations of vulnerability, is central to Oxfam’s values. As an organization fighting for women’s rights around the world, we have a special responsibility to protect the people we work with, our volunteers, partners and staff from sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.
Oxfam’s investigation of the Haiti case resulted in the creation of a dedicated Safeguarding Team, a confidential whistleblowing line and more comprehensive policies. These measures help Oxfam better protect people from abuse, sexual harassment and exploitation, and prevent it from happening in the first place. Our response in 2011 clearly did not meet the standards that we have today and we are working hard on corroborating the information from Chad. While we have since made many changes, it is clear we still have not done enough to change our own culture and to create the strongest possible policies to protect people we work with globally. We are doing that now. But we must do much more and act with greater urgency.
As members of this organization, we are absolutely committed to our work and Oxfam’s values. We are deeply hurt by these abuses and are committed to real change in the way we handle cases of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse and to how we support survivors.
We are committed to changing our culture and Oxfam has been doing so to ensure more gender balance in leadership roles. Of the 22 Executive Directors in the Oxfam confederation, women hold 15 of these positions. This move is also reflected in our regional leadership roles. Oxfam International Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, is leading on our work on the protection against sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse. Oxfam is committed to working with government to weed out exploitation in the aid sector and is now calling for a sector-wide approach.
We hope we can rebuild the trust of our supporters who know, as we do, that the actions of a few do not represent all that Oxfam stands for.
We’ll find out later today whether that statement in itself will be enough to satisfy the government’s concerns. Given the anger over the abuse of some of the world’s most desperately vulnerable people, it does seem very unlikely unless there are fundamental changes to the way Oxfam operates – starting at the very top of the organisation.
And even if government support is maintained, Oxfam’s reputation is now in tatters and the media revelations are likely to have dire consequences for the charity’s fundraising efforts.
Whatever the outcome of today’s crisis talks, the people who are likely to suffer most are the very people the charity was set up to support: the poor, the desperate and the frightened children and families all over the world.
Tragic.
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