To be absolutely disgusted about the OXFAM revelations?

[yolofish]

Forgive me if there is already another thread but I couldnt find one...

So Haiti: devastated by an earthquake. Head honchos come in - and they host a party in which young Haitian girls appeared wearing nothing but Oxfam tshirts - literally nothing else, according to today's Sunday Times.

Oxfam does amazing work of course. but gets £32m of tax payers' money year in year out - and this happened 7 years ago.

I am truly disgusted by these events.

This is a systemic problem though and by acting like only way to solve it is ask for the CEO of Oxfams head on a stick will not solve it. I work in the public sector and it’s common practice in places that I have worked that when someone has a serious accusation against them you let them resign and move on. This is because unless you have a cast iron case against them, you’ll be dragged through the courts. I’ve known of one man who threatened to sue a previous employer because information about a case against him (that was very well founded) had leaked to another workplace.

It’s a fine line to walk when someone hasn’t committed a prosecutable offence (and sexual harassment isn’t prosecutable)- do the courts protect the rights of individuals ie prevent blackballing, or the rights of companies? It’s not easy or simple but you wouldn’t know that from reading the coverage of the issues at Oxfam

I don't want the CEO's head on a stick but a resignation and promise to neverv work for a Charity again from the entire top management would be a start

Draylon

there is no excuse for the kind of behaviour Oxfam have displayed. None at all. I don't give a flying fuck about any vague attempts at explaining the behaviour. Charities SHOULDN'T be exploiting the vulnerable they are supposed to support.
You are essentially saying OK people, shit happens, let's move on. And support the over-entitled rich men playing at good deeds who see the poor and the vulnerable as an opportunity to play out their sexual perversions? Are you for real?
It's up to the people to decide whether they want to support charities. It's my money I earn with my work I am donating (or not). And I don't want it to support fucking bastards giving stuff they bought for my money for sex. I don't want the poor to feel they need to pay for the stuff they bought from the money we donated with their bodies. If I keep on doing it. I support that.
How about people who agree with what they were doing or who just accept it as collateral damage double their donations? That would be a grand solution, worth thinking "oh well, right, let's just go on as we have before"?

Justin Forsyth (great mate of Brendan Cox) has resigned from STC, not because of the 'mistakes' he made in propositioning women in junior positions, but because of the damage 'allegations' are doing to the charity sector.

I don't know where to start with that - 'mistakes' about propositioning women in junior positions (that's a 'mistake' like Cox grabbing a young woman by the throat and saying 'I'd like to fuck you' was clearly just a little misunderstanding, not predatory at all, oh no).

Maybe, just maybe, if you really care about the sector you work in, and the good works you are doing, you might not make quite so many mistakes involving exploiting women? EG women and children you are supposed to be helping, often in the worst situations in the world, not to mention the young women you employ. Perhaps that is naive?

Totally agree yolofish. Sickening the way this story is being spun. Brendan Cox even had the arrogance to ask for advice - from a woman he had met only once -on how best to respond to the whole sordid affair. here

yeah - so people looking for an excuse to stop giving money to charity have hit the jackpot. Good for you...keep your money and feel all smug about it to boot.

Meanwhile the people these charities are attempting to help are still suffering.

I still have zero understanding of why a charity, who could be expected to divert as much cash as they dare away from a bloated admin system and into relief efforts should be held to higher standard of HR professionalism by the posters on here than a football club or any other business.

Seriously - why should charities do better regarding HR issues than businesses? Why are you holding them to a higher standard?

Is it because they make you feel bad?

Oxfam is a big organization. There are bound to be some bad apples now and then in any big organization. Aid workers do not automatically become saints when they sign up.

On that basis, these allegations are nasty but they were dealt with at the time and most other big organisations have similar.

I’m much more worried at the ginormous salaries and the executive jollies. There is no excuse for those as they aren’t a thing done by a few bad apples and then tackled and got rid of. They are how the organization lives ......

Morphene maybe you can explain a bit more? because as far as I can see this topic has nothing to do with football clubs - which are moneymaking, for (massive) profit organisations - and much more to do with the fact that these huge charities (aka businesses) are using their emotional clout to generate donations from individuals/corporations, and are also receiving taxpayers' money.

Of course charities should do better than businesses, because in the case of Oxfam, Unicef, STC they are sending people out into areas where other people really really need help, in disaster zones for example. What those on the ground receiving that help DONT need is sexual or other forms of exploitation along the way. And those who are also working to further organisation's activities, whether in country or in management, also do not deserve to be exploited.

Could you please clarify why you think charities shouldnt do better than eg a football club?

Charities do their best but there’s a massive focus on ensuring (rightly) that the bulk of funding goes to the field to help people that need it. Strong HR, admin, financial controls, line management cost money thay take away from this and consequently are not sufficient - particularly when the public get very angry about money spent on those sorts of running costs

yeah - so people looking for an excuse to stop giving money to charity have hit the jackpot. Good for you...keep your money and feel all smug about it to boot.

Now, don't get me wrong but isn't the decision to give money to charity a complete voluntary decision of every individual? They way you wrote it it sounds like someone coerced them and they were only looking for a cop out.
It's charity. People have the right not to support a charity that exploits the very people it's supposed to help.
I feel a nice bit of racism in the reactions of people like you. "These are chaotic circumstances, Third World countries, surely they're used to sex in exchange for food. And the brave men just committed a one slight mistake by thinking it's OK."

yes clandestino lovely white chaps riding in on their chargers, a bit of an (involuntary) shag on the side, but you, the victim of the disaster, and your extended family get to eat/have some sanitation, so it's ok really? and in the meantime mr rescuer et al get cars and villas, and guards, and an expenses allowance, and a pension too. And if you really fuck up it seems you can just move on to the next charity.

Unfortunately, I fear Oxfam is just the tip of the Iceberg.

I spent a while in a developing country, and the reality is that White people are seen as sex business. Almost every 'ex pat' who had settled in the country was partnered with a local girl.

Shockingly, a local local dooctor we met said it was many a parents aspiration for their daughters to become sex workers as it's better paid, regular work.

We spent a month in a small coastal town where there was a charity who help build schools. Young adults taking gap years would work their socks off in McDonalds to save £4k to pay to visit this place, live in a shack, eat rice and help build a school.
The charity as far as I could tell was a business used as cover up for sex tourism. The handful of charity workers stationed longer term in the country were mainly gay and were using male prostitutes.
The local people literally assume white skin equals desire to abuse. I was propositioned by very young men (who I'm assuming would want payment), so was my husband. We learnt to stick together all the time.

It's all just utterly horrific, but very sadly I think Oxfam will just be the start.

perhaps you should explain why you should hold a charity to a higher standard - that makes no sense to me? They have a reason to avoid paying the additional money to make the organisation more admin heavy. You'd be pissed if only 10 p in the pound made it into aid, but now you are pissed they didn't spend even more on admin....its logically inconsistent.

morphene you seem very combative. I run a charity where 100p in ever £ goes to our particular cause, and because we are niche that is perhaps a luxury at our current stage; I totally understand that major charities cant do that. But I do still believe they should be held to the very highest standards possible, because of the emotional clout they use to gain donations and the fact that they receive govt funding, ie taxpayers' money. I'm not sure why you dont think that should be the case, and would really like you to explain if you dont mind?

Hey yolo - you should probably understand more before commenting. JF didn’t resign from STC but another charity.

My DH worked overseas ME, Africa for many years and in the company he worked for no one shacked up with local girls. He was an engineer. It isn’t holding charities to higher standards it is holding them to normal standards. No doubt some men visited prostitutes but it was on the quiet.
Screwing around openly with locals and bribing them with stuff provided by the company for sex would have not been acceptable. The last thing a private company wants is fall outs among employees over women and booze. What manager wants to sort that, what company wants to risk the bad publicity.

oops mea culpa appletree just finding it a tad hard to keep up with all the resignations left right and centre from sex abusers in high ranking/high paid positions within major international charities.

No need to exaggerate Yolo. I mean there haven’t been many exaggerations from “sex abusers”

Sorry, resignations.

Beanteam I'm sorry but I think you were having the wool pulled over your eyes.

@phlaps I am not saying no overseas workers did this I am saying not all foreign companies did this ( had live in or paid sex workers) which seems to be Morphs opinion, thus making the charity workers behaviour the norm and acceptable.

Plan International now too...

In fairness to Plan, they seem to have dealt with it properly. Reported the crimes to the police in the country they took place, sacked the perpetrators immediately and refused to give references. If that's what had happened at Oxfam there would be no scandal.

Sorry for double post...

"One involved a staff member who was dismissed, the charity said in a statement on its website, while the other five involved volunteers or partner organisations, whose contracts were terminated.

Five of the cases "were of a criminal nature" and were reported to local authorities.

During the same period there were nine incidents of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct by staff on other adults, which led to seven dismissals and two warnings about inappropriate language, the statement said."

There's an ocean of difference between Plan's action against sexual harrassment and abuse, and what has been uncovered at Oxfam and Save the Children where the men involved were simply allowed to resign with their honour intact, redeployed and given no doubt glowing references for even more prestigious jobs.

What Plan have announced happened on their watch is clearly a disgrace, but they have not colluded with abusers, they actually took action which is fully in line with their mission, values and basic human decency. I would not be put off donating to Plan based on today's statement. I'm never giving another penny to the other two though.