By Sammie Jones-
Senior employees at Oxfam committed sex crimes against minors and other workers in Haiti during a trip there in 2010, it has been revealed.
The aid agency have landed in hot water after an investigation by The Times newspaper in London revealed allegations that Oxfam’s leaders attempted to cover-up sex crimes by senior employees after the devastating 2010 quake.
Hundreds of thousands of people died during the historical quake, and whilst the country was coming to terms with the awful disaster, top Oxfam employees were using their position of trust to commit sex crimes.
Following the revelations, Oxfam stands to loose government funding, leading to emergency plans by the organisations to try to make amends to the damaging allegations.
An urgent meeting with members of the British government has been earmarked , and Oxfam has announced it would strengthen its staff vetting procedures and introduce a new whistleblower helpline as part of a package of reforms.
“It is not sufficient to be appalled by the behavior of our former staff — we must and will learn from it and use it as a spur to improvement,” Oxfam’s chair of trustees, Caroline Thomson, said in a statement.
The aid workers, including the Oxfam country director at the time, Roland van Hauwermeiren, were accused of turning the villa rented by the organisation into a makeshift brothel, with prostitutes only wearing Oxfam T-shirts.
SHOCKED
Yesterday, Oxfam said in a statement that it was”shocked and dismayed” to hear more allegations about the use of sex workers by Oxfam staff in Chad in 2006.
“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.”