*LONDON – Sexual exploitation is endemic across the international aidsector, which is delusional about its efforts to tackle the problem, aBritish parliamentary investigation found in a damning report released onTuesday.*
The report on sexual exploitation and abuse in the sector, produced by theInternational Development Committee scrutiny panel of MPs, saidself-regulation had completely failed to deal with the issue.
“The overall impression is one of complacency, verging on complicity,” thereport said.
Lawmakers were investigating the aid sector following revelations earlierthis year of a prostitution scandal in Haiti involving staff from theBritish charity Oxfam.
That triggered a flood of complaints across the sector.
The committee said the scale of the problem was impossible to define butthere were suspicions that known cases so far were the tip of the iceberg.
“Sexual exploitation and abuse is happening and it is happening acrossorganisations, countries and institutions. It is endemic, and it has beenfor a long time,” the parliamentary report said.
“The delivery of aid to people and communities in crisis has been subvertedby sexual predators who exploit weakened systems of governance.”
In its conclusions, the report said the international aid sector’s responseto tackling abuse had been “reactive, patchy and sluggish”.
It said there had been a collective failure of leadership and the aidsector was in “self-delusion” over its efforts to deal with the issue.
“Impunity for sexual exploitation and abuse is utterly unacceptable. Thelack of accountability entirely undermines the notion of zero tolerance,”the MPs said.
The committee called for a global register of aid workers, to preventsexual predators seeking to drift around the sector.
“Reactions driven by concern for reputational management” will “never bringabout meaningful change,” the MPs said.
*October conference*
Britain is hosting an international safeguarding conference on October 18aimed at striking a common front agreement across the sector.
Britain’s International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said survivorsneeded to be put first.
“Until the sector is fully prepared to address the power imbalance,cultures, and behaviours that allow sexual abuse, exploitation andharassment to happen, we will never stamp it out,” she said.
Judith Brodie, who heads Bond, Britain’s network of internationaldevelopment non-governmental organisations, said the sector was working toend sex abuse.
“We as NGOs know that ‘business as usual’ is not going to cut it and changehas started,” she said.
Oxfam chair of trustees Caroline Thomson said the report made for“incredibly painful reading.”
“We failed to protect vulnerable women in Haiti, and we accept we shouldhave reported more clearly at the time — for that we are truly sorry,” shesaid. – APP/AFP