2The historical response to SEA
38.We have heard about a myriad of policies, procedures, principles, mechanisms, measures, initiatives and task forces, with which the international aid sector has responded to the periodic revelations of sexual exploitation and abuse, but there appears to have been a lack of commitment to drive real change. Asmita Naik told us:
There have clearly been policy-level measures since the 2002 West Africa scandal; the problem seems to be the lack of adequate implementation… it appears from recent revelations that organisations could do more to prevent and respond to abuse.63
The historical response of multilateral organisations
39.Our evidence suggests that over the past 16 years, multilateral organisations have taken a distinctly reactive approach to SEA, and have failed to sustain momentum or produce tangible outcomes. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) UK told us: “The UN has multiple initiatives to tackle this issue, though responses tend to be more reactive than proactive, and attention is cyclical”64
40.DFID told us about some of the steps that had been taken at the multilateral level in response to SEA revelations in the early 2000s:
the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises was established in 2002, which developed a set of six core principles to reflect the commitment of its members (UN, INGOs and other humanitarian actors) to strengthening and enhancing the protection and care of women and children in humanitarian situations. In response to the IASC’s recommendations, the UN published the Secretary General’s Bulletin (SGB) entitled Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, defining the behaviour of UN staff and related personnel in relation to SEA.65
41.However, this Task Force has struggled to produce results. It secured agreement from its members to an action plan, but the IASC’s critical review in 2010, evaluating the SEA activities of UN, NGO, IOM and IFRC personnel, showed that agencies were not implementing policies effectively.66 IASC established a second Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) in January 2012 (the previous Task Force was seemingly, inexplicably, dissolved).67 According to the IRC UK, this PSEA Task Force has made some “good efforts” to tackle the problem, but IASC has struggled to operationalise agreed measures due to lack of resources.68
42.Following the publication of Save the Children’s 2008 report, ‘No One to Turn To’, there was a “flurry of activity” in the UN and amongst NGOs around protecting children from SEA.69 This included a cross-UN-wide meeting and high-level political statements, but, according to Corinna Csáky, the author of the report, these “remained very much at the technical guidance level” and lacked implementation on the ground.70
43.In 2015, the publication of the report of the High-Level External Independent Review Panel on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by International Peacekeeping Forces in the Central African Republic, provided another push for action and a UN Special Coordinator on SEA, Jane Holl Lute, was appointed in 2016 to “support the ongoing efforts of the Secretary-General and the leadership of United Nations offices, departments, funds and programmes to better align our peacekeeping and human rights systems and to strengthen United Nations response to sexual exploitation and abuse”.71
44.One year later, in February 2017, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres published a Special Measures Report outlining a “new approach” to tackling SEA, in which he acknowledged the “insufficient attention and a lack of sustained efforts on the part of the senior United Nations leadership and Member States, until provoked by crisis”.72 He has since introduced a series of measures for tackling SEA as part of this “new approach”. In late 2017, Marie Deschamps, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and chair of the 2015 United Nations Report of an Independent Review on SEA by International Peacekeeping Forces in the Central African Republic, commented:
I must say that not much has been done. Both Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary-General Guterres are speaking up against sexual abuse, but in practice I am less than sure that anything circulates to the United Nations because what we can observe are the very same problems that we have observed for decades …73
The UN’s response to SEA will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 8.
The historical response of NGOs
45.The response of NGOs appears to have been similarly shallow in its implementation. According to the Overseas Development Institute, “While it is important to recognise past efforts, the response to investigations and reports of SEA has mainly been to update codes of conduct and safeguarding policies”.74 DFID outlined several collective initiatives undertaken by NGOs. These include:
the Humanitarian Accountability Project, to develop and enforce codes of conduct and implement reporting and investigations systems; the Keeping Children Safe initiative, which helps organisations implement International Child Safeguarding Standards; and the Core Humanitarian Standard (and its predecessors) to describe the essential elements of principled, accountable and high-quality humanitarian aid.75
DFID acknowledged, however, that “a better understanding is required of how effectively these standards translate into the practices required”.76
46.The evidence that we received specifically on Oxfam’s historical response to SEA reflects this pattern of policy change without proper implementation. After their internal investigation into sexual exploitation in Haiti in 2011, Oxfam created a dedicated safeguarding role, but have admitted that for a long time this was underfunded.77 William Anderson, the first person to hold the position, told us that whilst he was in post, he found that “safeguarding was only valued in the abstract and was about ticking boxes rather than seriously looking at the dynamics that foster abuse”.78 He illustrated how Oxfam’s concern for reputation was more apparent than its commitment to rooting out the problem of SEA:
It took me a while to realise that some of my early conversations were at loggerheads; when I talked about risk it was about protecting the vulnerable whereas most risk conversations in Oxfam were about reputational risk and how to protect the Oxfam brand.79
The reality of the problem itself, was not fully recognised by management:
After all Oxfam was OXFAM and the belief was that that sort of thing was unlikely to happen in such a moral, professional organisation. There was an institutional blindness to the fact that Oxfam, rather than being unlikely to have safeguarding issues, was exactly the sort of organisation in which they will fester.80
47.Helen Evans, who succeeded Mr Anderson and was Oxfam GB’s ‘Global Head of Safeguarding’ between 2012 and 2015 “repeatedly asked without success for additional safeguarding resource” and felt that senior management failed to take her concerns about safeguarding seriously. She ultimately resigned, finding her position “untenable”.81 In her oral evidence, however, she highlighted that “what was really positive was that Oxfam did have a safeguarding function. A lot of agencies do not have one”.82 This leaves open a very troubling question about the kind of approach being taken by those organisations that have had even less focus on safeguarding than Oxfam.
48.We received some indication of the approach being taken by NGOs across the sector when taking evidence from the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) Alliance. The CHS Alliance is a membership organisation with members operating in more than 160 countries worldwide in both the humanitarian and development sector. Part of its offer to members is that it provides training, including on effective complaint response mechanisms. When asked how many members had taken part in this training on complaint response, they replied:
This is something where we need to do some work, because we had no requests in 2017 for any workshops, yet the information we have from the assessments that have been carried out says that this is the area that, collectively, has the lowest score.83
Whilst low take-up could have been due, in part, to lack of awareness, the fact that there had been no requests at all was striking.
49.The ongoing failures that are brought to light in both official reports and in the media, provide evidence in themselves of the extent to which NGOs have responded effectively to SEA. Asked about the sector-wide response to Save the Children’s 2008 report, Kevin Watkins said:
We would not be facing the problems that we are currently facing if we had seen a response on the scale that we needed to.84
DFID’s historical response
50.We believe that DFID could have done a lot more in response to reports and allegations of SEA. With regards to the 2002 West Africa report, we have received evidence suggesting that the UK’s response at the time was relatively muted compared to some other national donor governments and rested on an uncritical acceptance of the UN’s activities. In contrast, a joint statement by Australia, Canada and New Zealand to the UN General Assembly was critical of the UN’s follow-up to the 2002 report and, in particular, of the lack of any specific accountability achieved.85 We were told that when this was raised with DFID, the UK’s position was described by a senior official as “… better now to look forwards than to look backwards, and to try to support the measures that are being taken to improve matters … than to continue to harangue the errors of the past”.86
51.The evidence we heard from the Rt Hon Clare Short, former Secretary of State for DFID, and the consequent joint memorandum from DFID and the MOD, does not offer much to contradict this impression of a muted response. Despite being acknowledged in one of Clare Short’s written answers from October 2002, the West Africa report does not seem to have been escalated up to Secretary of State level within DFID. Ms Short displayed no knowledge of the report when she appeared before the Committee in June87 and told us that SEA was “not an issue in any way, shape or form in my time in office”.88 The MOD can locate no records of any steps taken. The joint DFID/MOD memorandum implies this was due to the lack of detail provided in the report about the allegation against British peacekeepers.89 However, it would be extremely unusual, possibly reckless, practice to place this kind of detail in a document drafted for publication. The report’s author described the arrangements for storing the material on which it was based securely (e.g. testimony and witness identities separately) to preserve confidentiality and protect victims and survivors. She said: “The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (UN OIOS) did not investigate as it never asked me for details of the specific allegation referring to British Peacekeepers in the West Africa report. This information was gathered by me from a credible source in UNICEF. The UK government did not ask me for details at the time, neither did anyone else. This is the first time I am being asked about it”.90
52.It seems that this lacklustre approach to SEA has lingered within the Department for a number of years. According to Hope and Homes for Children, Save the Children’s 2008 report did not elicit a response from the UK Government.91 As co-chair of IASC’s PSEA Task Force in 2014, Helen Evans requested information from donors on their approach to safeguarding. DFID responded that, although it did have dedicated resource on counter-fraud, it did not have one on safeguarding.92
Response since February 2018
53.Since the Oxfam scandal broke in The Times in February 2018, we have seen a burst of activity around SEA, both from NGOs and, prominently, from DFID. The general response among NGOs has been to review safeguarding strategies and procedures, adopting new ideas where relevant. The Committee has received written evidence from several large NGOs which operate globally, such as ActionAid, the International Rescue Committee, British Red Cross, Plan International, and Oxfam, among others, outlining some of the ways in which these organisations have responded to safeguarding issues. These responses are varied, and range from improving safeguarding training93 and strengthening recruitment practices94 to increasing the resources dedicated to safeguarding,95 contracting an external hotline service for reporting abuse96 and improving screening procedures for staff.97 There has also been a notable increase in safeguarding-related serious incident reports to the Charity Commission, who told us that they have now received about 1,100 reports of serious incidents with regards to safeguarding since February: approximately the same number of serious incident reports that the Commission received throughout the whole of 2016–17.98
54.DFID reacted rapidly to the Oxfam scandal after the story broke in February, establishing a new Safeguarding Unit within the Department only days after the story first appeared in The Times.99 DFID told us that the role of this Safeguarding Unit is “not to replace safeguarding and the responsibility of safeguarding across DFID; it is to actually set and to raise standards on safeguarding right across the international sector, including DFID”.100 In addition to creating the new Unit, the Department has: gathered assurances from partners on their safeguarding policies; established a donor working group with the aim of bringing about collective action on SEA; announced new due diligence standards on which funding will be conditional; and written to the Secretary General together with other donors, demanding collective action.101 Notably, the Department also co-hosted a Safeguarding Summit with the Charity Commission in March, resulting in a Joint Statement from all participants, and the establishment of four working groups that have been commissioned to take forward the sector’s response on key areas.102 There will be a follow-up International Safeguarding Conference on 18 October 2018. The Secretary of State told us that at this Conference, she expects participants to commit to practical measures to tackling SEA in the immediate term, as well as agreeing ways to progress on more long-term solutions:
There will be a work plan going forward, but I think some of the basic things that will strengthen the whole sector, wherever we work—with, in particular, the major contributors towards humanitarian funding—should be in place by October.103
55.DFID has presented itself as being willing to lead the sector globally and committed to driving change, with Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft CBE telling the Committee: “Nothing is in the “too difficult” box anymore, even if it ever was”.104
56.DFID’s recent activity has been broadly welcomed by several of the large aid organisations that submitted evidence to the Committee.105 But we also received warnings that for there to be real progress, DFID’s focus and leadership on SEA must be sustained in the long term.106 Prioritising “the pursuit of headline grabbing ‘quick wins’” will not bring about transformational change.107 We also heard concerns from Christian Aid about how well DFID’s new approach to safeguarding is filtering down through the Department, and that “there are mixed messages about the priority given to PSEA [protection from sexual exploitation and abuse] from different parts of DFID”. They told us that DFID’s in-country offices should now be taking a lead on PSEA at the national level.108
57.Several organisations highlighted the importance of a cross-government approach to safeguarding, with all ODA spending departments ensuring that standards are met in the programmes that they fund.109 ActionAid UK said that DFID’s new Safeguarding Unit should be leading on this, and that it “should have responsibility for all safeguarding issues related to international development and aid across relevant government departments”.110 We see that DFID has been engaging other ODA-spending Departments on its recent safeguarding work, both bilaterally and through the cross-Government ODA groups, but we also note that DFID’s new safeguarding standards are optional and the recently established cross-Government Safeguarding Group is being chaired by the Cabinet Office.111
58.The international aid sector’s response to tackling SEA since 2002 has been reactive, patchy and sluggish. The UN has failed to display sustained leadership. DFID’s historical response to reports of SEA has been disappointing. NGOs have created new policies and procedures but have not successfully implemented them, and where worthwhile initiatives have been developed, these have been continually underfunded. Whilst there are clearly actors within the aid community who are dedicated to tackling SEA, the overall impression is one of complacency, verging on complicity.
59.The sector’s considerable movement on PSEA in the past few months is certainly welcome, but it is also long overdue. The Oxfam story did not reveal to aid organisations that SEA was a problem, but it did highlight the impact of a media exposé. The sector has been aware of the problem of SEA for years, but as our evidence, and even the UN Secretary-General, have indicated, action only seems to come when there is a crisis. A reactive, cyclical approach, driven by concern for reputational management, will not bring about transformational change.
60.The work that DFID has done since February 2018 is encouraging, but we are yet to be reassured that the momentum will be sustained, and that progress will not begin to stagnate as it has done following previous reports and scandals. We commend the leadership that DFID has been showing on this issue, but the real test now is what happens next.
61.Following the International Safeguarding Conference in October 2018, DFID must display a high-level of sustained leadership and engagement on sexual exploitation and abuse. This means both driving forward change on the international stage, and ensuring that in-country offices are similarly displaying leadership at the national level. The Government should recognise the pivotal role that the DFID’s Safeguarding Unit can play in ensuring coherence across ODA-spending departments, and should instruct the Unit to take responsibility for coordination. To display long-term commitment, and ensure sustained progress, DFID should report annually on its safeguarding activities. This report should have a particular focus on the Safeguarding Unit, tracking achievements against clear objectives.
62.The Committee will play its part in ensuring that momentum on SEA is maintained. We will start with an examination of the Government’s response to this report and consideration of the Charity Commission’s findings; and following that, we will scrutinise the annual reports on safeguarding that we hope the Department will agree to publish. We will also consider safeguarding risks as part of future inquiries, so that we can monitor how well DFID is ensuring that safeguarding is integrated across its programmes.
67 Inter-Agency Standing Committee, ‘IASC Task Team on Accountability to Affected Populations and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (AAP/PSEA)’, accessed 24 July 2018
71 United Nations, ‘Secretary-General Appoints Jane Holl Lute of United States as Special Coordinator on Improving United Nations Response to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’, 8 February 2016
72 United Nations General Assembly, Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse: a new approach. Report of the Secretary General, (February 2017), p 6
73 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, ‘A Climate of Impunity? The Problem of Sexual Abuse by UN Peacekeeping Forces, with Justice Marie Deschamps’, December 2017
76 Ibid
79 Ibid
80 Ibid
89 Department for International Development & Ministry of Defence (SEA0056); and see Annex 2, pages 89 and 90, paragraphs 3, 8 and 9
99 Department for International Development, ‘Statement from International Development Secretary on Oxfam and UK action to tackle sexual exploitation in the aid sector’, 12 February 2018
102 Ibid
Published: 31 July 2018