Safeguarding girls and protecting women post Jimmy Saville & #metoo

[SpareRibFem]

I don't understand, there was a lot of hand wringing after the revelations about Jimmy Saville became widely accepted. #metoo there was more handwringing about the need to listen to women when they are telling you something that makes you uncomfortable.

Saville was allowed to get away with what he didn't because he created an aura of fear and people would afraid of the backlash if they spoke up. Those that did suffered.

We were promised something like that could never happen again...

And yet now despite many women and girls saying they feel afraid and uncomfortable sharing single sex spaces with someone with a penis weren't told we're bigoted and verbally abused for saying that. Our employers are contacted and told we're bigots, we're doxxed.

And organisations like girl guides are going still further in saying it must be kept a secret when girls are being forced to sleep and change with a male bodied teen with a penis (& teen levels of hormones) and I'm not even allowed to identify what sex that male bodied teen with a penis is on a public forum

Girl Guides are taking that approach despite the knowledge that abusers use secrecy and shame to their advantage.

Just like with Saville anyone who excesses concerns is shouted down and accused of being the person in the wrong by the powerful. There is a culture of fear now. Celebrity voices in particular (thinking people like Munroe Bergdorf, Stephen Fry and long list of others) are given more weight to shout down women's concerns. Male bodied people feelings are paramount despite almost all sexual abusers being male bodied (and most of the tiny tiny number of female bodied sexual abusers working with and being in thrall to a male bodied abuser)

Did we as a society learn nothing from Saville & the multitude of other abuse scandals that women and children/girls should be listened to, that celebrities voices help hide abusers, that telling girls to keep secrets from their parents about the presence of penises in their bedrooms and changing rooms and showing them they will be blamed and abused if they transgress and tell someone creates an environment where abuse can flourish.

From 2015:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/c642439c-dfa1-11e4-a6c4-00144feab7de
Northamptonshire council takes outsourcing to different level
Council transfers 4,000 workers to four service providers, leaving just 150 core staff

A Conservative-run Midlands county council is blazing a trail for providing public services in an age of austerity.

Northamptonshire is reducing its core staff to 150 people by transferring 4,000 employees to four new service providers, which will be part-owned by the council, paying dividends, but managed like private sector companies

Hmmm... 🤔

R0wantrees my point exactly.

Commercial interests before safeguarding. Carried out in the name of austerity.

And we wonder why our society is fragmenting politically along the lines of those who have economically and those who don't.

Commercial interests before safeguarding. Carried out in the name of austerity.

It enabled a small number of developers/speculators to extract a great deal of funding.

Sustainability of services, the needs of the service users & the training/retention of experienced staff will never be the the priority.

RedToothBrush, have a look at the comments by social workers, parents etc under the CC article above.

All desperate to Safeguard & describing being hampered by the system & CQC.

Listen out for the Charity Commision's report on Oxfam's Safeguarding failures out today.

"letting down everyone including victims & whistleblowers"

Prioritisation of corporate branding over Safeguarding children & vulnerable adults.

There's a great deal which will continue to come out.

R0wantrees if politicians had a better understanding and put a higher value on safeguarding would we be in this mess? It covers a huge range of issues.

If the media hadnt been weakened and become more interested in comment and the cult of personality rather than investigative journalism would we be where we are?

What's worse is the number of politicians (both at local level and at Westminster level) and media barons / celebrities who have a financial interest in these outsourced companies.

There is a profound conflict of interest.

Listening to coverage of the Charity Commision's report on Oxfam. It's on Radio 4 now.

It'll be spun but as I hear it Oxfam was covering up sexual abuse of children by its staff. Among other disgraceful practices.

YY Red

WIthin charity sector, aid & development, schools, care etc a raft of employees with no frontline/Safeguarding knowledge but who have focussed on policy/brand/networking etc thus interacting with media & politics.

Those on the frontlines with knowledge and focus on Safeguarding, care etc have been systematically hindered by austerity.

A small number of people have been enjoying profits, lifestyle & power whilst absolutely failing to protect those children & vulnerable adults their organisation was set up for.

There's massive systemic failings.
Harm has and is being done.

It'll be spun but as I hear it Oxfam was covering up sexual abuse of children by its staff. Among other disgraceful practices

There are systemic Safeguarding issues within the aid sector.

The Radio 4 report made that very clear. But those with the power to do something don't really want to reform it because it is the destination of choice for so many of the Establishment.

The thing that scares me is the whole thing sits with the 'liberal elite' narrative which really does open politics up to exploitation by the far right in the absence of proper discussion and dissection of the issues going on. And its why those who are challenging it in the apropriate ways are being smeared as being in league with the far right.

Just seen the headlines on BBC news about Oxfam. The headline suggested they got a slap on the wrists. Nothing more.

BBC

(extract)
The Charity Commission said some of the organisation's failings amounted to mismanagement, prompting the regulator to issue Oxfam GB with an official warning.

The report, which follows an 18-month investigation, found the charity failed to heed warnings its culture and its response to keeping people safe were inadequate.

"What went wrong in Haiti did not happen in isolation," Charity Commission chief executive Helen Stephenson said.

"Over a period of years, Oxfam's internal culture tolerated poor behaviour, and at times lost sight of the values it stands for."

www.bbc.com/news/uk-48593401

= systemic Safeguarding framework failure

May 28th 2019

BBC 'Amnesty loses five bosses after report on 'toxic workplace'

(extract)
"Amnesty International is to lose most of its senior leadership team after a report said it had a "toxic" workplace.

The human rights organisation's secretary-general, Kumi Naidoo, ordered an independent review after two employees killed themselves last year.

In the review one staff member described Amnesty as having "a toxic culture of secrecy and mistrust". (continues)

There were reports of managers belittling staff in meetings and making demeaning and menacing comments, for example: "You should quit. If you stay in this position, your life will be a misery."

There were multiple accounts of discrimination on the basis of race and gender, and in which women, staff of colour, and LGBT employees were allegedly targeted or treated unfairly.

The report also pointed to an "us versus them" dynamic between employees and management. (continues)

www.bbc.com/news/uk-48431652

There are systemic Safeguarding issues within the aid sector

It feels like there's systemic safeguarding issues everywhere and that MN users are doing the job investigative journalists should be doing

I find it striking just how many of these charities are going directly against the principles and purpose for which they were set up.

Instead of stopping the problem, in many respects they have often become the problem.

I find it disturbing, and almost as if they have been deliberately hijacked because they were so effective at their jobs that the only way to combat that was almost through infiltration or as deliberate vehicle of misuse due to their status and a lack of internal oversight. The halo effect, if you will, whereby only the good can support them and to criticise is to commit a sin cos 'won't you think of the children'.

It feels like there's systemic safeguarding issues everywhere

There are & what is being seen is partial view of the consequences of systemic failures & failings.

Here is the fostering thread on Twitter that was on a now deleted FWR thread:

twitter.com/MartinBarrow/status/1137007634366828544

Excerpts:

The National Association of Fostering Providers lobbies on behalf of ‘independent’ foster care providers, ie those not part of local authorities.

The NAFP is recognised by LA children’s services and has a seat at the table whenever policy is discussed by government.

I have analysed every member company’s accounts (where available). After many hours of fun, I can reveal that NAFP members are earning profits in excess of £100 million a year

In addition to other (brilliant) points made here about the charitable industrial complex, I also think that outsourcing and austerity combined has resulted in a blurring of the boundary between public services and charitable activities.

Should charities really be providing services that most people would see as the responsibility of government? Or only the "optional extras" as it were?

I am not a fan of outsourcing in public services or functions. I think it reduces public accountability even without infiltration of a mediating class to take all the well paid charitable jobs without a proper understanding of the services provided.

I think it's time we renewed the conversation about public service and the third sector in toto.

You can't FOI outsourced companies.

That means you can't FOI to see how many 'incidents' there have been with a particular company.

Thats an accountability and safeguarding issue right there.

linked on the twitter thread above:

January 2018 Guardian article by Aditya Chakrabortty

'Why do we let greedy financiers profit from the pain of foster children?'
Private equity has turned care of the vulnerable into a racket that exploits both the carer and taxpayer'

(extract)
Central to the new business of fostering is austerity. Because of spending cuts, the sector is booming, taking more money from councils – and thus making the cuts to come far bigger. The household benefits cap, the two-child limit for poor families, the precarious low-paying jobs market: all are helping to tear families apart – and pushing more children into care. In England, 72,000 children are in care, a total that has risen every year for nine years.

For most of us, such figures bring despondency. Among financiers, however, they represent opportunity. In 2013, the Financial Times reported that private-equity barons were sniffing around this “growth market”. Analysts called fostering “a classic private equity play”.

Sure enough, the barons have upended the industry. Once there were hundreds of private fostering outfits, typically small and set up by former social workers, but now finance firms have hoovered up many of them. The result is an expensive oligopoly.

Take Maria’s home city of Liverpool, where almost 900 children live with foster parents. Private agencies take care of just under a third of those – at a cost of over two-thirds, £10.5m, of the council’s £15m fostering budget. A city hit so hard by austerity that it teeters on the verge of bankruptcy now spends so much on private foster care it has had to cut back even more on vital services.

Nor is Liverpool alone. In a 2016 report, the government adviser Martin Narey found that private foster agencies were “charging almost 92% more” than local authorities." (continues)
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/30/financiers-foster-children-care-carer-taxpayer

Well colour me unsurprised.

www.gov.uk/government/news/charity-commission-reports-on-inquiry-into-oxfam-gb-no-charity-is-more-important-than-the-people-it-serves-or-the-mission-it-pursues

(extract)

"In a foreword to the report, Baroness Stowell, Chair of the Charity Commission, says no charity is more important that the mission it pursues or the people it serves:
No charity is so large, nor is its mission so important that it can afford to put its own reputation ahead of the dignity and wellbeing of those it exists to protect. But the implications of this inquiry are not confined to the failings of a single, big charity, because no charity is too small to bear its own share of responsibility for upholding the wider good name of charity.

Ultimately being a charity is more than just about what you do, it is also about the way in which you do it. The Charity Commission is determined to reassure the public that it understands this fundamental point and will work with the sector it regulates to demonstrate that fact in the months and years ahead."

February 2018

(extract)
A WHISTLE blower has claimed UN staff could have carried out 60,000 rapes in the last decade as aid workers indulge in sex abuse unchecked around the world.

"The claim is in a bombshell dossier that former senior United Nations official Andrew Macleod handed over to DFID Secretary Priti Patel last year.

A whistle blower has claimed UN staff could have carried out 60,000 rapes in the last decade
In it, Professor Macleod also estimated there are 3,300 paedophiles working for the world body’s various agencies alone.

Thousands more “predatory” sex abusers specifically target aid charity jobs to get close to vulnerable women and children.

And there has been an “endemic” cover-up of the sickening crimes for two decades, with those who attempt to blow the whistle just getting fired.

Sharing his dossier with The Sun, Prof MacLeod last night warned that the spiralling abuse scandal was on the same scale as the Catholic Church’s.

The respected academic said: “There are tens of thousands of aid workers around the world with paedophile tendencies, but if you wear a UNICEF T-shirt nobody will ask what you’re up to.

“You have the impunity to do whatever you want.

“It is endemic across the aid industry across the world”.

“The system is at fault, and should have stopped this years ago.”

Professor MacLeod worked as an aid boss for the UN all over the world, including high profile jobs in the Balkans, Rwanda and Pakistan – where he was chief of operations of the UN’s Emergency Coordination Centre.

He is campaigning for far tougher checks on aid workers in the field as well as the abusers among them to be brought to justice, and wants the UK to lead the fight.

The professor’s grim 60,000 figure is based on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s admission last year that UN peacekeepers and civilian staff abused 311 victims in just one 12 month period over 2016.

The UN also admits that the likely true number of cases reported against its staff is double that, as figures outside of war zones are not centrally collated." (continues)

www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/5562215/un-aid-workers-raped-60000-people-as-its-claimed-organisation-employs-3300-paedophiles/

Remember LangCleg's post?

LangCleg Thu 21-Feb-19 10:38:12

"How did the scandal of TV entertainers grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of Catholic priests grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of on-street gangs grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

Because if you create a sacred caste of any group and silence anyone asking questions about individuals on behalf of the sacred caste, abusers will see, infiltrate, and groom and exploit children. That''s how.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3512177-Julia-Long-asking-Munro-Bergdorf-about-child-exploitation?pg=12&messages=25

'What Peter Dalglish’s Guilty Verdict Means for the #AidToo Movement'
by Lori Handrahan
(extract)
"Peter Dalglish, a Canadian and former high-level United Nations (UN) official, arrested in the Republic of Nepal on child sex trafficking charges in April 2018, has been found guilty in June 2019.

While Dalglish’s arrest prompted shock on social media, about a man many called a “hero,” humanitarians occupying new safeguarding and protection from sexual abuse and exploitation (PSEA) positions created post-Oxfam scandal are oddly silent.

Because Dalglish’s resume reads like so many criminal complaints I have reviewed in my extensive research on child traffickers, when I learned of Dalglish’s arrest my response was, “of course.” Dalglish is no hero. By accounts, so far, it appears he is a typical sexual predator — a highly-placed pedophile." (continues)

medium.com/@LoriHandrahan2/what-peter-dalglishs-arrest-means-for-the-aidtoo-movement-ce249e0d6684