Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries Contents

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4Power dynamics and culture

Power dynamics

61.Our predecessor committee explained in its 2018 report into Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector, how gender inequality and patriarchy have contributed to enabling sexual exploitation and abuse to persist.73 Extreme power imbalances are typical of the aid sector and the inequality is most stark in humanitarian crises, where the local population is often reliant on aid provided by international organisations to meet even their most basic needs. Frequently in these situations opportunities for paid employment are scarce, the local population is living in poverty and beneficiaries are vulnerable to predators who abuse their power and resources to exploit them. It is critical that aid organisations are alert to these power dynamics, the risks to beneficiaries they pose, and they should take steps to mitigate these risks.

62.Aid organisations should seek to mitigate the power imbalances through better engagement with the local population. Several witnesses told us that aid beneficiaries—particularly women—are not involved in or consulted enough in the planning and delivery of aid. Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading School of Law explained why it is important to involve beneficiaries from the start:

If you do not involve aid recipients, survivors and victims in designing programmes and the delivery of programmes, you have no hope in involving them in designing reporting mechanisms, or one-stop shops for support, or anything else they will need.74

63.Aid organisations can also reduce the risk of beneficiaries being sexually exploited by ensuring they are well informed of their rights and entitlements. Alina Potts of the Global Women’s Institute told the Committee that on several occasions women who reported sexual exploitation and abuse later discovered they were being offered aid they were already entitled to.75 “Information is power” and essential information should be shared in a way that is transparent, gender sensitive and takes into account different types of literacy. The best way to communicate this type of information will be context specific and methods should be designed in cooperation with the local population.76

64.Stephanie Draper, CEO of Bond acknowledged the power inequalities in the sector. She told us that measures for prevention in the long term include building trust on the ground and ensuring that women’s and children’s rights groups are supported to make everyone aware of their rights and how to complain. Writer, lawyer and social entrepreneur, Lesley Agams recommended that humanitarian aid distribution should be delegated to women and women’s organisations, in order to decrease opportunities for women to be subjected to transactional sex.77

65.Aid organisations should try to design programmes in cooperation with the local populations where the programmes will be delivered. They should also take responsibility for ensuring that aid beneficiaries are fully informed of their rights and know what is and what is not acceptable behaviour by aid workers. They might disseminate this information themselves with cooperation from the local population, or work with local women’s rights organisations to share the information. Either way, it must be shared in a sensitive and context specific manner. Access to this information will empower women and help them to make informed decisions. The FCDO should prioritise organisations that demonstrate active engagement with local populations when it is tendering for aid delivery contracts.

Covid-19

66.There are serious concerns that the covid-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it could exacerbate the vulnerabilities faced by aid beneficiaries. In July 2020 Alina Potts told this inquiry:

food rations have been minimised in Uganda and other places. A lot of funding is moving to the covid-19 pandemic response and moving away from things like gender-based violence services. We have communities that have maybe less access to aid and it is harder for them to travel and to move around. There is a lot of fear. There is fear even going to access aid.78

67.The reduction in aid will make women more vulnerable to exploitation. Furthermore, many safe spaces where women access services or receive confidential support have either closed down or can only be accessed by mobile phone. Many women and girls do not have access to these mobile services.79 However, with many of the international organisations having reduced their personnel in-country, this might be a good opportunity for community-based organisations to take control in a more locally led approach.

68.It is important that the international aid sector recognises the risks that the covid-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it pose to women. Any reduction in aid supplies will make them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and should be avoided. This comes at the same time that safe spaces and confidential services for women are becoming more difficult to access. International aid organisations should work with local, community-based organisations in-country to continue to provide gender-based support and access to services throughout the covid-19 pandemic. This should be taken as an opportunity to consider how these services can be more locally led in future too.

Derogatory attitudes and discrimination

69.Throughout this inquiry witnesses told us that the culture of the aid sector has played a central role in preventing aid workers from speaking up and reporting misconduct perpetrated by their colleagues. This has helped sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries to persist. Our predecessor committee heard that responsibility for setting an ethical, value-based organisational culture falls to the leaders at the top.80 Actions taken towards this goal and progress achieved will be explored later in this Chapter, however, our evidence suggests that in order to combat sexual exploitation and abuse, intersecting issues relating to gender expression, ethnicity, religious affiliation, disability, sexual orientation and age also need to be addressed.81 We heard that the humanitarian aid sector is predominantly male. Paisley Dodds, Investigations Editor at The New Humanitarian told us that during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC, 80% of World Health Organization (W.H.O) employees were men.82 Sally Proudlove, Co-Chair, NGO Safeguarding Working Group on Leadership and Culture articulated that working in a way that is genuinely anti-racist and addresses gender power-dynamics will be interlinked with improving safeguarding culture.83

70.Activist, writer and Co-Founder of NGO Safe Space, Alexia Pepper de Caires told us the aid sector harbours a “white-saviour complex” and it doesn’t acknowledge the harm inflicted on beneficiaries because it believes its work is carried out “in the interests of doing good”.84 Other witnesses told us that they had experienced sexist, racist and neo-colonial attitudes by aid worker colleagues. Journalist and Co-Founder of NGO Safe Space, Shaista Aziz described her experience of being targeted for her intersecting identities as a hijab wearing Muslim woman. She told us:

From my experiences, casual bullying in the office and belittling of women in particular are at the heart of what goes on, and everything then stems from that. I have been subjected to very casual levels of racism and daily micro-aggressions in the offices where I have worked.85

Shaista indicated that these issues link back to the power dynamics of the sector, telling us: “Misogyny, racism, sexism, sexual exploitation and abuse are about power.”86 While it was not the focus of this inquiry, the treatment of some aid staff by their co-workers demonstrates the need for a more inclusive and value-based culture.

71.The recent ‘Me too’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ social movements have demonstrated the pervasiveness of these discriminatory attitudes throughout society. Deputy Africa Editor at The New Humanitarian, Philip Kleinfeld explained how discriminatory attitudes may have contributed to media reporting during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He told us that some of the journalists who reported on the situation repeated the narrative put out by aid organisations operating there and the western media published stories deriding the local population for attacking the aid workers. We now have a much clearer understanding that sexual exploitation and abuse was an “open secret” during the response. This suggests that it was tolerated rather than challenged by aid workers, which might explain, in part, why the local population were suspicious of the aid workers and reacted in the ways they did. Philip Kleinfeld described the situation as he observed it:

The foundational principle of the Ebola response was that you had, on the one hand, this group of responders from the W.H.O to all the NGOs who were the heroes and, on the other hand, you had this irrational and unreasonable group of Congolese residents who were launching all of these attacks, did not believe Ebola was real and thought it was some kind of conspiracy.87

72.It is important that aid organisations promote diversity and inclusion, including recruiting greater numbers of women and minority ethnic staff to senior leadership roles, to challenge and overcome discriminatory attitudes and cultures that permit sexual exploitation and abuse to perpetuate as occurred during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC.

73.Aid organisations must acknowledge the extreme power imbalances that have been a feature of the sector and design their programmes in a way that empowers beneficiaries. Managers should be held responsible for instilling an open and inclusive culture at their organisation that is actively anti-racist, where all staff are valued and safeguarding against sexual exploitation and abuse is ingrained in its daily operations. They should be reprimanded when it is clear this hasn’t happened.

Action taken to improve organisational culture

74.Our predecessor committee acknowledged the difficulties in influencing organisations involved in the whole supply chain, and contractors on the ground in aid settings,88 however, it was clear that aid organisations should do what they can to build an open and inclusive culture that encourages speaking up against perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse throughout the sector. This was one of the main themes of the October 2018 Safeguarding Summit hosted by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), during which over 500 aid actors signed up to public commitments including some relating to improving workplace culture.89

75.DFID’s written evidence to this inquiry explained that numerous aid organisations have subsequently appointed safeguarding leads and champions and they have trained their staff to help drive positive cultural change.90 DFID contributed to six safeguarding conferences with participants from across the sector, to focus on safeguarding culture. The UK also co-chaired the process that culminated in 30 major donors agreeing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation abuse and Harassment, in July 2019.91 The Department for International Development told us that it ensured that fostering improved organisational culture and norms featured prominently in the Recommendation.92

76.Oxfam was widely criticised in our predecessor committee’s first report on Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector, for its poor handling of sexual abuses which took place during the humanitarian response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.93 In June 2019 the Charity Commission concluded its inquiry into Oxfam GB, finding it had a “culture of poor behaviour” and poor accountability among staff in Haiti in 2011, and that individuals took advantage of this.94

77.In its written evidence Oxfam said over recent years it has worked hard to raise awareness amongst staff, and change the culture in which it works, to prevent the abuse of power and support those who speak out. Oxfam has established a new cross-country working group focusing on: LGBTQI, Disability, Gender, and Race and implemented initiatives to challenge staff to address unconscious bias. It has introduced ‘Active Bystander’ training to challenge negative behaviours such as bullying, and encourages ‘safe spaces’ and staff-led networks where people can share experiences and learn from each other about issues such as racism, sexual identity and hierarchy.95 The charity is sharing its experience with others in the sector to promote learning.

78.We are aware of various initiatives undertaken by other aid organisations too. For example, to improve the flow of communication and feed into management discussions, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has appointed two safeguarding leads to each local office who undertake these responsibilities alongside their main role. In specific locations the Department for International Development (DFID) provided financial support for dedicated in-country safeguarding-focused positions. According to the IRC initial results show growth in its clients’ trust in the organisation. It says it has increased its engagement with clients in Tanzania, including the production of client-led communication materials, alongside locally recruited staff.96

79.The initial report undertaken by our predecessor committee into sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector concluded that:

there is room for sector-wide clarity and agreement on how a positive safeguarding culture can be identified, and what the best tools are for ensuring that this is embedded.97

80.It also welcomed the establishment of the NGO working group on leadership and culture. Bond told this inquiry that the Working Group on Leadership and Culture has developed a tool for leaders to help them to understand what a positive safeguarding culture involves and the role they play in creating and maintaining that culture. It includes indicators of a safe culture and behaviours leaders should model. The content of the tool was finalised in 2019 and the group has worked with DFID and potential digital suppliers to develop it into a digital tool that can be widely disseminated. Bond said that through its engagement with the sector on the tool it has learned there is a desire from organisations to move beyond safeguarding compliance to organisations that have safe cultures.98

81.In its follow-up report, our predecessor committee highlighted the slow progress made to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse in the private sector in particular. Chemonics told us that it has introduced various measures, including an employee-led taskforce called the Sexual Harassment, Exploitation, and Abuse Working Group, to develop policies, procedures and systems to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment cases, with an emphasis on a survivor-centred approach. It works closely with Chemonics executives and other teams to ensure employee oversight. Chemonics has also developed capacity building tools for local partners and beneficiaries to prevent, detect and address incidences of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.99

82.In its written evidence the IRC explained that its experience resonates with a report published by the Gender and Development Network report that found that following the Haiti scandal in 2018, public shaming and reputational risk acted as “powerful motivators” but that change has been more operational than transformative.100 We agree with this assertion.

83.Although aid organisations have taken many welcome steps to raise awareness and combat sexual exploitation and abuse, the changes have focussed on strengthening weak practices and policy development rather than transforming the power dynamics and enabling culture that have been embedded in the aid sector. Until a true transformation takes place, we fear that what happened during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC could continue to occur in humanitarian aid settings around the world.