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Allegations and evidence of sexual misconduct and cover ups by aid workers and organizations, including Oxfam, other NGOs as well as the UN, have recently created a storm of criticism and accusations of hypocrisy, exploitation and colonialism against the aid sector. Public financing is being lost and thousands of citizens are withdrawing their support to their charities of choice. Oxfam chief has claimed that the attacks on the organization \u201care out of proportion to the level of culpability\u201d, hinting at an anti-aid agenda behind the attacks \u2013 thereby unleashing a secondary wave of criticism.<\/p>\n
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Parts of the Spanish press has taken a sudden interest in humanitarian aid \u2013 and has in turn been accused of revenge against the widely publicized studies by Oxfam about inequality, poverty and vulnerability. Perhaps more disturbingly, we aid workers have also had to deal with a number of misguided defences. Renowned UK historian Mary Beard has tweeted that \u201cone can\u2019t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain \u201ccivilised\u201d values in a disaster zone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Evidence of sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as of cover-ups, is above all an occasion for shame, reckoning, soul-searching and reinforcing of prevention, denunciation and response systems in the whole aid sector \u2013 including whistle-blower protection mechanisms. Even in these times of heated and passionate debate, it should also be a good opportunity for much needed reflection about the nature and causes of sexual exploitation and that of the aid sector. First of all, let us once and for all lay to rest the notion that sexual abuse (including paying for sex with underage girls or boys, or plainly paying for sex in disaster areas) has anything to do with coping with stress, or with a conveniently pathologized, irresistible sexual addiction.<\/p>\n
Certainly, consensual sex does exist as a coping mechanism in disaster areas, in case anybody was in doubt. However, the necessity to cope does not explain, let alone justify, sexual abuse, which is a phenomenon of a completely different nature. Sexual exploitation and abuse is, put simply, the manifestation of a desire to humiliate, to dehumanize and to overpower another human being. There should be little wonder that most (though by far not all) sexual abuse is acted by men upon women. Sexual exploitation and abuse, be it in the aid sector or elsewhere, needs no sympathy or comprehension and admits no other response that zero tolerance.<\/p>\n
The current system of prevention, identification and response to sexual exploitation and abuse was set up in UN agencies and many NGOs after the UN\u2019s Office for Internal Oversight Services investigated a 2001 extensive report by Save the Children and UNHCR about the issue in West Africa. Since then, systems have been put in place or reinforced and prevention and response has been strengthened. However, these systems are still insufficient and clearly much remains to be done, and done faster. Inhabitants of disaster zones continue to be highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse not because of the immorality or sex drive of aid workers or peacekeepers, but because the massive imbalance of power between foreigners (often Western) with salaries and return tickets in their pockets, and desperate victims of war and disasters. Sexual exploitation by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic and the difficulties in getting the story out show also the keen importance of continuing to support independent investigative journalism in disaster and conflict areas. International aid and development organizations need also to become much better and faster at considering local organizations and inhabitants of disaster and conflict areas as equal partners, and facilitating takeover by local authorities and civil society as fast as conditions allow. But above all, we humanitarian managers need to be held accountable to the highest standards of prevention, identification and response to sexual exploitation and abuse.<\/p>\n
The current debate around sexual exploitation in the aid sector should also be a good opportunity to step back and reflect about the motivations of aid workers, and the nature of the sector itself. Let it be said that we aid workers are no saints or heroes, and we do not belong to a particular moral elite of humanity. We are flawed human beings doing a necessary job \u2013 and many of us do it, among other reasons, because we like it. What is exceptional is not our presumed human qualities \u2013 it is the exceptional nature of the situations in which we work, including the vulnerability of those under our care and the imbalance of power between us. This is why, on issues such as sexual exploitation and abuse, rather than justifications or leniency we require particularly strong prevention and response mechanisms, including scrutiny by the press, donors and other external actors.<\/p>\n
Now, once stated that we aid workers are no worst and no better than the average human being, and that we do not belong to a particular moral elite of humanity, it is crucial to note that this theory has an important corollary. Aid work does not represent an \u201cextra good\u201d that humanity could do or not do, it is not charity and it is not an overflow of the milk of human kindness. Aid work is a public service responding to the right to life, security, dignity and well-being of victims of conflict or natural disasters. The rights of a Mbororo child dying of malnutrition in a remote town on the Cameroon \u2013 Central African Republic border in January 2014 are being violated exactly in the same way as those of a child who, say, would purposefully be run over by a car in Trafalgar Square and then left to bleed to death by passers-by.<\/p>\n
Thus, the aid sector exists exactly because of the same reasons why we have hospitals, ambulances, firefighters, schools, doctors, psychiatrists and garbage collectors at home. And international aid organizations exist because in many situations, primary duty bearers, that is national authorities, require support or in some cases, are unable or unwilling to protect and promote rights \u2013 or because they are violating them in the first place, while weakening and repressing local civil society, aid and human rights mechanisms. This is why as long as there is need, properly conceived and executed international aid needs to be supported. Anybody trying to use current revelations about sex abuse in the aid sector for politically motivated anti-aid agendas would do well realizing, moreover, that besides carrying out a public service we aid workers are often the cleaning teams picking up the pieces of violence, exploitation and overconsumption that others, including in the West, contribute to organize and from which they profit.<\/p>\n
A final note \u2013 whereas many (including me in this article) have alluded to the #MeToo movement in connection with sexual exploitation and abuse inside the aid sector, the voices of victims and survivors, in particular women in conflict and disaster areas, have somehow been drowned in the sound and fury of the debate. We know the names, faces and biographies of some culprits but we know little of those who have suffered exploitation or abuse at their hands, or at other\u2019s hands for that matter, and what they have done to resist \u2013 and this contributes to their dehumanization. This will be, however, matter for the next post.<\/p>\n