Oxfam has lost 7,000 regular donors since it was revealed staff sexually exploited victims of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, its chief executive has told a committee of MPs, which accused the charity of treating vulnerable women “like trinkets”.
During questioning by the international development committee, Mark Goldring apologised to MPs for the actions of staff who were dismissed for their use of sex workers in Haiti, and acknowledged that the charity’s actions had damaged the whole aid community, as well as the people of Haiti.
The Labour MP Stephen Twigg, who chairs the committee, said it was striking how often Goldring needed to apologise during the near-two-hour evidence session, saying there was “a lot to apologise for”.
Goldring said there had been 26 reports of sexual misconduct since the news of the Haiti abuse broke, of which 16 related to international programmes. “We really want people to come forward wherever they are and whenever this happened,” he said.
He also admitted thousands of people had cancelled their donations since the scandal broke and said corporate donors were waiting to watch what the charity’s response would be.
Goldring, who took up his post in 2013, said Oxfam’s director in Haiti, Roland van Hauwermeiren, should not have been allowed to resign when his role in the scandal was revealed and that the charity should have done more to warn future employers rather than merely refusing to give a reference.
When pressed on the ages of the women involved, Goldring said Oxfam’s own investigations found no women were under 18, the legal age of consent in Haiti. “Our investigation included trying to speak to the women involved ... and it interviewed as many of the women as it could trace. In those interviews, the women were asked their age and no evidence arose they were under 18.”
The Conservative MP Pauline Latham said she was deeply concerned about the attitude to the Haitian women involved, including comments from Goldring that the charity had been advised not to report it to the authorities in Haiti because of a lack of confidence that any action would be taken. Goldring said he had not been able to track down where the advice had come from, “either verbally or informally”.
“Prostitutes are victims, they are not doing it because they want to be prostitutes,” Latham said. “These poor girls have had a natural disaster. You as an organisation, along with others, go in there promising to help. These are pretty vulnerable women and girls, looking for Oxfam to get them through this terrible situation. You are dealing with these women and girls as if they are just trinkets and you can pay for them, give them a bit of aid, and that’s OK.”
Goldring repeatedly apologised to the committee for his own comments that had appeared to play down the seriousness of the scandal. In an interview last week in the Guardian, Goldring said the charity was being attacked as if “we murdered babies in their cots” and said he had not slept for six days.
“I make no excuses, I make an apology for comparing what I was going through with the bigger picture,” he said. “My first concern is the women of Haiti and anybody else who has been wronged as a result of Oxfam’s programme. I shouldn’t have put my own sleep, or lack of it, in the public domain.
“I have tried hard to balance work and sleep over the last two weeks. The results, I believe, are that I’m continuing to do my job and I’m continuing to make appropriate decisions. I hope I have led Oxfam competently, but that’s for others to decide.”
Goldring told the committee that at the time of the original investigation into events in Haiti, Oxfam issued a press release revealing its findings of “serious misconduct” involving bullying, intimidation and breaches of the charity’s code of conduct. It did not go into details at the time about the fact that sexual exploitation was involved. He admitted, with hindsight, the charity should have been more transparent.
“We know now that that was not enough,” he said. “My colleagues at the time made a set of decisions about how public to go. With hindsight, they made the wrong call. If we were culpable – which we were – we should have been completely transparent. At the time, I suspect there was a balance of saying: ‘Oxfam is delivering life-saving assistance to a million people in Haiti … we have got to keep that work going.’”
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