"It's not as if we murdered babies in their cots" - Oxfam

But taking a step back - what could Oxfam (or any other charity) do?

Plenty of organisations have safeguarding policies that permit disclosure of disciplinary investigations of employees to other agencies when they believe there could be a risk.

The fact that other charities employed these men on the basis of references from former colleagues, rather than via the HR dept of the former Employer, only strengthens my concern that this is a far wider issue than just OXFAM. There appears to be a sector-wide ignorance when it comes to Safer Recruitment practice.

OXFAM and other charities should take the time to read the OFSTED guidance for schools regarding safeguarding and recruitment; what you're describing would be considered a total failure in Safeguarding in any school.

WTF!

He literally just said:

"Its ok our organisation didn't contain murderers, we just had a few child rapists."

@inseoir apologies - my bad.

You’re quite right- these were not only women but poor, black women. It makes me sick.

"You have no proof that any crime has been committed or indeed know the identities of the women involved".

k2, Mikelange Gabou was on the ITV lunchtime news, stating that Roland van Hauwermeiren paid her for sex and gave her nappies for her child. She was 17 at the time.

And don't forget that Jimmy Savile raised millions for charity - it is the ultimate smoke screen for a violent man.

@Sarahjconnor

Sad but true. The vulnerable will always be exploited by those gaining access to them under the guise of helping them.

Of course it's endemic. For someone to be so incredibly blatant as to openly bring women to his villa, he has to believe he's untouchable and that his behaviour will go unnoticed. He has to have seen other people doing similar things or at least got the impression from the culture of the organisation that no one really cared. This is not an aid worker visiting a prostitute in a nowhere place, this was a director of the charity in an area with a lot of press attention, openly bringing women to exploit them at the accommodation that Oxfam paid for. Now that's been found out his only response is that he didn't pay for sex. He has not in any way acknowledged that he had a position of authority that he abused in the most base way.

There's no agenda to destroy aid, unless you include aid workers raping the children and women they are supposed to help as part of the insidious plot.

The way NGOs are hindering economic development in Haiti is a disgrace. We should be holding charities far more accountable than we currently do.

These huge charities need a reason to exist and in a lot of cases they perpetuate it. Emergency aid is a wonderful thing but development aid can often be counter productive.

The charity commission are a joke as well. If they want to pay private company levels of pay they need to start looking at how heavily regulated a lot of these industries are as well.

I think this is the tip of the iceberg. The reason they saw nothing wrong is that this type of exploitation is endemic.

However there the vast majority of people at Oxfam are working to make things better - against all the odds.

Stopping donations helps no one

k2p2k2tog - can I just ask - do you really believe you're not making excuses?

Because I'm astonished at your excuses for it - I realise you are loyal to Oxfam, but women and children were raped in disaster zones.

I'm not sure your 0.01% figure is truly accurate either. If it's anything like the UN peacekeepers, it'll be much much higher than that.

Do you not think k2 that it's a bit funny that you're one of the few on this thread coming to this man's defense but by your own admission haven't read his interview?

You forgot a bit there McTufty - it should be 'It's only sexual abuse of non-people (ie women), so chill the fuck out.' Apparently on the murder of babies in cots should bother us, everyone is else is fair game. I'm guessing though that had it been sexual abuse of men, especially real men (ie not filthy savage natives) then the story would be very different.

One cannot be expected to care about scum like forrin women.

It’s only sexual abuse, not murder, so chill the fuck out.

A depressingly unsurprising point of view, although I’m shocked someone high profile was stupid enough to say it out loud.

How was it even possible for such a high up employee to bring women to his villa? Where did he get the idea that he could do that and get away with it? How many other high up employees had done the same thing before him? How many other employees knew this was happening and said and did nothing about it? Yes they couldn't prosecute these specimens but they could have put out a statement saying that they could have carried out an internal investigation and put out a statement making it clear that that was what they were doing.

But they didn't. They just kept quiet about it and hoped no one would notice, then when people did notice they said 'Oh come on stop being so emotional!!'

There has been practically no mention at all of the women exploited. Oxfam, a charity that supposedly helps people, knew these 'men' had raped vulnerable women who had just experienced a horrific earthquake. What did they do to help those women? My guess is absolutely fuck all.

Inseoir - I get where you're coming from, really I do. It was disgusting behaviour and should never have happened.

But taking a step back - what could Oxfam (or any other charity) do? The local police in Haiti aren't interested in investigating. You have no proof that any crime has been committed or indeed know the identities of the women involved. The UK police can't get involved. You're legally not allowed to ring round all the other charities telling them not to employ Fred because he was up to dodgy stuff in Haiti. All you can do is try your very best to tighten up on your recruitment and whistle blowing procedures.

Can't really comment on the recruitment as I'm not involved in how foreign staff are recruited to work overseas and what checks are done. There is a lot of stuff about safeguarding and whistleblowing though, and as a volunteer it's clear what you should do if you see something you're not comfortable with - whether that's another volunteer stealing or an employee harrassing someone.

Thank you k2. The truth is not so simple.
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/16/oxfam-boss-mark-goldring-anything-we-say-is-being-manipulated-weve-been-savaged

The reemploying thing should never have happened - and is part of the reason Penny Lawrence felt she had to resign as it occurred on her watch.

I do think a register would be a good idea but would have all sorts of logistical difficulties and privacy issues.

I'll tell you how you don't deal with it. You don't quietly allow the people responsible to slink away quietly only to be rehired by other charities or other parts of the same charity. You don't fail to tell the people providing you with millions of pounds what has happened. You don't ignore the victims involved and do nothing to redress the wrong done to them and when all of this finally gets out you don't then do an interview with a national newspaper implying that being disgusted by the exploitation of women is an overreaction.

Is it not the case that this has been happening for a while across the aid industry as paedophile tourism has become harder.
And these stupid people in the trans movement think their time and energy is best spent elbowing women out of female spaces. ffs

Oxfam reemployed one of the people it allowed to resign after the Haiti incident in a different disaster zone

I don't disagree that there may be additional motives behind the timing of all this, especially, as Lass points out, since everyone has known it was going on for years.

But I don't care. Anything that puts a stop to it is a good thing.

So how do you deal with it then? Any employer can DBS check all of their employees (or whatever the local system might be) but if nobody's ever been convicted of a crime, there's no record of that. There's certainly no inference that charities are doing DBS checks which are flagging up issues, and then choosing to employ those people anyway. There has been talk of setting up a register of approved aid workers which sounds great but would need every single country around hte world to buy into the idea and share records. And in most cases there are no records to share as these people are "clean".

It's not inevitable - but you can take all the precautions in the world to avoid employing people with an unhealthy attitude to women, but a determined man is still going to get through the system. Perhaps we should be pressing for changes in the legislation so that people suspected of crimes overseas when employed by a UK based charity can be prosecuted under UK law - but again, there's no proof that any crime was committed here at all.

I suggest you read the interview K2p.

Yes, men who abuse women are everywhere and will use whatever means necessary to get their kicks, including going to wartorn countries to exploit women who have literally lost everything.

That's a pretty big issue in itself, one that's largely ignored or put across like you have - as though it's inevitable and we all just have to put up with it.

Be that as it may, the further issue is that the CEO of Oxfam has given an interview implying that the people who are rightly disgusted that women were abused and Oxfam covered it up are overreacting because the only thing we have a right to get upset about is babies being murdered in their cots. This is the man running your supposedly great charity. He is a fucking disgrace.