How to handle bad behaviour in a charity?

Re corruption, from all I've ever heard from those who've been at the sharp end, it's absolutely endemic in many countries where charities operate.

Responsible organisations do their damnedest to avoid donors' money finding its way into dodgy pockets by e.g. not employing local staff in positions where, with the best will in the world, they might be under severe pressure or intimidation from local officials/tribal leaders, etc.

I heard of one case - this was in Aceh after the tsunami - when a huge amount of local labour was needed to clear tons of mud and debris from the enormous fish ponds which provided many local livelihoods.

The charity concerned was paying the local people to clear it - this was working very well until my relative was told by distressed workers that their local chief or tribal leader, or whatever he was, was demanding half their pay from each of them.

An official from the charity had to go to this man (who was armed with a rifle) and tell him that either it stopped, or they would stop the cash and nobody would get anything at all. It worked.

I heard of a case in Haiti, where customs officials refused to release certain badly needed supplies until hefty bribes were paid - they were expected as an entirely normal thing. They refused, and of course this delayed what they needed to do.
From all I have heard, corruption is rife in Haiti and for this reason I find the self righteous comments from a Haitian official, as quoted by Libby Purves, particularly distasteful.

I see the morality of using prositutes as seperate from the need to make sure each prostitute is working under her own free will and is safe. I don't think it is the customers' responsibility to stay away from prostitutes just in case they are the wrong age or being forced into it somehow, that is the job of the people running the country to keep women and girls safe. As long as there are women who wish to (note I said WISH to) earn a living this way, they should be free to do so in safety.

Excellent article by Libby Purves this morning:

Oxfam’s PR obsession has harmed its mission

February 12 2018, 12:01am,
Libby Purves

Charities must not allow reputation management to become more important than the vulnerable people they serve

Suppose you are a teenager, and your life has crumbled in war or disaster. Your home is rubble, you have seen too many dead bodies and those who protected you no longer can. You’re hungry, ragged, without education or occupation except the exhausting scrabble to survive. Into your community — or rather, alongside it — come big, strong men in grand 4x4s, building shelters, setting up field kitchens and surgeries. Queues form. Weeks go on and a weird kind of normality sets in. All authority seems to rest in these foreigners, not in the ramshackle but familiar structures of your own society. And hey, some of these powerful angels seem to take an interest in you! Astonishingly it seems that even in your poverty and helplessness you have something they want.

So they get it. Your shame, pain, perhaps even your pregnancy, is traded at a price they hardly notice. This is known, by those who study the workings of aid organisations, as an “imbalance of power”. As for the sex, a mild way to refer to it is as prostitution, with the comforting implication of a market. But really it is rape, violation, exploitation. United Nations peacekeepers in Africa have been found guilty though rarely punished. Sexual predation by both soldiers and aid workers is reported from the Philippines and Haiti. In Cambodia and Mozambique prostitution measurably rose after UN forces moved in, and hitherto rare sexually transmitted diseases became endemic, often among children. Nato peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo have been implicated too. It’s a known risk.

Any well-run aid organisation knows that and, for the sake of the work and its majority of decent employees, it should be wary and pitilessly intolerant of abuse. This is not just “misconduct” or “inappropriate”. It is crime, as serious as it would be on our own turf. When one of our most revered charities can’t grasp that, we are cumbered with shame.

This paper revealed that shame in delineating how Oxfam protected its brand with a weaselling cover-up, which it has denied, over some arrogant whorehounds in its employ in Haiti. At the weekend volunteers and donors got an email from the charity’s chief executive Mark Goldring, saying that the front page of The Times was “very, very hard to read” and reassuring us that after an investigation in 2011 four people got sacked. Three resigned, including the country director, “before the end of the investigation”.

You bet he did. Roland van Hauwermeiren was allowed, in the words of a confidential internal report, a “phased and dignified exit” to protect the charity’s reputation and work. The Haitian authorities were not informed, even though prostitution is illegal in that mainly Catholic country. Incidentally, Mr Goldring’s plaint that it was “very, very hard” to read about this in The Times makes one wonder whether his predecessor, Dame Barbara Stocking, brought him up to speed about it.

Mr Van Hauwermeiren got a new job running a charity in Bangladesh, without Oxfam telling it anything. Others who resigned or were sacked moved on to other lands and jobs where they would be working with vulnerable girls. Dame Barbara floated off to head a Cambridge college, having first set up, she says, a whistleblowing service and “safeguarding”. Her line is that she protected both the vital work and local Haitian staff who might, she claims, have been blamed. Even the Charity Commission here was not given the full details.

Have these well-meaning, well-padded grandees learnt nothing from the experience of the Catholic church and others? Do they not grasp that “brand protection” and matey collegiate understanding end in disaster? That a cover-up, actual or perceived, makes the guilt of abusers spread higher, labelling the top management as condoning or complicit?

The honest, painful way to protect your brand is to cauterise the filthy wound, hand the creeps over and reveal and reject and disgrace previously cherished colleagues. Granted, it could have been messy and difficult in a disaster zone to pass the abusers to the Haitian police. Oxfam now says that the legal advice it received was that it was “extremely unlikely that reporting these incidents to the police would lead to any action being taken”. But you could at least inform the host government, treat it as a partner, admit the offence, accept that it is as bad to do it in a disaster zone as it would be back home and make clear this is not the sort of employee you tolerate for ten minutes.

The culture of these aid bodies, the biggest non-governmental organisations, is often not only self-protective but self-perpetuating, and imperially dismissive of the troubled, struggling local “native” authorities. We are the West, we know best! It is no surprise that last year Haiti banned 257 NGOs for being, as the minister Aviol Fleurant put it, “disconnected from the priorities and needs of the Haitian people”. Nor is it surprising that more people here turn their philanthropy to small charities that work on specific problems, without much power or clout or grants from the Department for International Development but close to the local people. Sadly, the world still needs both kinds. But as the money clinks into the box we need to know that the big hitters really understand humility, decency and justice.

"The simple fact is that if The Times and Rod Liddle got their way the available systems to react to humanitarian crises would collapse.

And development aid would pretty much come to an end.

Whilst pressure on tax havens would dissipate.

And campaigns for better governance in the public and private sectors that are critical to the ending of abuse in both would be pretty much stopped in their tracks.

Whilst tax havens would flourish again as the world turned its attention away from them."

Of course, some people on here would like that.

grumppa good summing up

There is no suggestion that the kind of behaviour their staff were involved in in Haiti is endemic in the charity and in other countries.
Unfortunately more were reported on the news this evening M0nica.
What is so sickening about these charity workers (some the same ones who went from one charity to another) is that they were taking advantage of those in need and distress at a time when they were at their most vulnerable.

Liddle said, "Never give these people ( Oxfam staffers) any of your money."
Not quite the same as saying don't give money to various large charities.

"On Thursday 8 February Westminster published its report into sexual harassment, including controversial rules about anonymity, which documented that almost 1-in-5 workers in Westminster had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/08/europe/uk-parliament-sexual-harassment-report-intl/index.html).

So after years (even decades) of scandal after scandal rocking the establishment, including politicians, businessmen and bankers, just after the report on the lasted scandal about the ongoing culture of Westminster, filled with bullying, abuse of power and sexual harassment, is published, at only 1 minute past midnight the next day The Times published “revelations” about Oxfam workers illegally paying for prostitutes that was made public in August 2011! Coincidence? Dare I say the right-wing press were sitting on this in order to deflect scandal from Tory MPs in Westminster by accusing Oxfam, who only works to alleviate poverty and mitigate climate change, both issues that the rich are happy ignoring in the pursuit of wealth. And now instead of MPs putting their house in order they are threatening to stop giving NGOs government aid (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43020875) and accusing British NGOs of systematic abuse, even though the figure of 120 cases last year is a UN figure that seems to be for the globe not just UK aid organisations (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/11/government-threatens-withdraw-funding-oxfam-faces-fresh-allegations/). This is a very convenient distraction for the Tories, with the side-effect that those who work against their neoliberal globalisation ideologies will receive less funds, and be less of a thorn in their side in future (without caring that they will be unable to do as much good, resulting in less lives saved and less people freed from the crippling effects of poverty).

Is the timing just coincidence? I doubt it."
A response to Murphy's article.

Oxfam is a very large organisation helping the least advantaged in the world. Any organisation that size will have bad apples among its staff and depraved and perverted staff who will join for the opportunities it may give them in places far from home. Small charities are no more safe from this kind of thing than the big ones.

There is no suggestion that the kind of behaviour their staff were involved in in Haiti is endemic in the charity and in other countries. That it happened even once must be deplored, especially for the victims of abuse, but can anyone name any organisation which hasn't at some time had a problem of this nature at some time or another?

Recognising that incompetence and corruption waste overseas aid is not anti-aid; it's anti corruption and incompetence with regard to aid money.

It has been said quite a few times on Gransnet by people other than me that they have stopped donating to various large charities because they feel their donations are not helping the people the donors want to help but just lining the pockets of greedy not needy people. That, essentially, was Liddle's point too.

Liddle, not Lindley! Predictive text will be the death of me.

Good summary, grumppa.

In his inimitable and irritating way, Rod Lindley was making two points: that poverty in Africa arises from incompetence and corruption, and that Oxfam is well aware of this and should, therefore, not be supported

The first point is a widely held view. The second is contentious because of what Oxfam does in regimes that are not corrupt.

Methinks Mr. Murphy doth protest too much; as usual, on the evidence of the articles of his to which we are regularly referred.

In my family are two 'horses' mouths' who both worked for years for various charities (not all British) overseas, and were both in Haiti at the time.

They tell me that the use of prostitutes happens (in a small minority of staff) right across the aid sector, and that virtually all aid workers who have been in the field are aware of this.

I am told that at the time, when staff were dismissed and an investigation was launched, the head of another very well known major charity expressed amazement that Oxfam was launching an investigation - they would certainly not be courting adverse publicity (in other words although staff might be sacked, it would all be conveniently swept under the carpet.).

If Oxfam - widely acknowledged to be more transparent than most - had swept all this right under the carpet, they would not be facing such damning publicity now.

My horses' mouths are now fully expecting that a good many more revelations about what goes on in so many other aid organisations - including the most respected - will now come out.

Perhaps you can explain to Mr Murphy what Mr Liddle means, Baggs. Obviously you know better than Mr Murphy does.

I'm sorry if I have reported something, i.e. that good references were given, that has since been proved to be false. There seem to be conflicting reports relating to this.

If it is a fact that references were provided which made no mention of gross misconduct, there should be an investigation within Oxfam to identify whether the references were on Oxfam headed notepaper and, if so, who had written them/given permission for them to be provided. If it transpires that the references were provided in the name of Oxfam, the persons involved should, in my view, be dismissed. If, on the other hand, the references were provided by former or current employees of Oxfam on a personal basis, and this was not made clear to the prospective employer, I can't see how Oxfam is at fault. Without knowing all the details, it may be unwise and unfair to rush to judgment.

On the issue of the behaviour that brought about these employees' dismissal, I don't think that it is acceptable for charity workers (who are supposed to be assisting communities hit by war/ poverty/natural disaster) to be using the services of prostitutes. In such circumstances these women often have few choices as to how they make enough money to buy even the basics of life which, because of shortages, are often very expensive. For employees of charities to exploit their situation is, in my view, inexcusable.

It should be borne in mind that Oxfam has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the government recently and I'm sure some individuals will be very happy it is receiving such negative publicity. I will continue to support Oxfam.

Rod Liddle does not speak for the Times. He speaks for himself and Mr Murphy has not really understood what he's saying because he hasn't understood how Liddle talks.

Anyway, that aside, the Times had a 2017 Christmas Appeal (presume it does every year but I don't know) for three charities: The Ellen MacArthur Trust for children suffering from cancer, The Alzheimers Society, and Children on the Edge which has been helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh for the past seven years.

These are disaster victims. Not some insulated area of Haiti. Haiti was devastated in 2010
12 January: the magnitude 7.0 2010 Haiti earthquake which occurred on 12 at 16:53, local time. The earthquake killed between 46,000 and 316,000 people. Its epicentre was at approximately 25 km from Port-au-Prince, the capital. A dozen secondary shocks of magnitudes ranging from 5.0 to 5.9 were registered during the hours which followed.
20 January: A second earthquake[15][16] of magnitude 6.1 occurred on 20 January 2010 at 06:03 local time. Its epicentre was at approximately 59 km west of Port-au-Prince, and at least 10 km beneath th
He surface.
20 October: A cholera epidemic hit outside of Port-au-Prince, killing at least 3,597 and sickening over 340,000.[17]
5 November: Hurricane Tomas hits and kills at least 10 Haitiens causing damage and worsening the cholera epidemic.
Not just one disaster then.
Prostitution is illegal in Haiti so those aid workers were complicit in illegal activities.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/02/11/the-times-is-guilty-of-supporting-abuse/

Interesting article. The Times supports poverty, so don't give the Times your money.

Have not followed this as thoroughly as many posters but I understood that the women were already working as prositutes before the disaster and before the Oxfam teams arrived. And indeed that it was a way out of poverty for them, and it is unsurprising that some would be under age. That is not the same thing as taking sexual advantage of disaster victims themselves, which is what some media reporting seems to be suggesting. If as a result of all this Oxfam donations fall significantly and their disaster aid operations are curtailed, who are the gainers?

quizqueen

My thoughts exactly.

Counterpoint "Oxfam has said plainly that it did not give references for the people involved and recorded in its systems that references were not to be provided."

Well, that's not what Roland van Hauwermeiren's next employers, Action Against Hunger in Bangladesh are saying is it?
"The French charity told The Independent that they “conducted references checks as per French labour law regulations and internal procedures before employing him".

So who's lying, I wonder?

ReadyMeals wouldn't it be a good idea to find out about things before you comment on them.
Roland van Hauwermeiren, 68, went on to become the head of a mission for Action Against Hunger in Bangladesh after he resigned as Oxfam’s Haiti country director in 2011
Not Haitians. Not vulnerable people. Rich affluent westerners exploiting disasters and aid work.

The actual news is telling us "they visited prostitutes". This usually means an agreed transaction between consenting adults. While a bit "icky", it's not the same as if these people are likely to be mauling their colleagues or people they are helping.

Oh well, that's alright then isnt it? So long as they're not mauling Sharon in the accounts department it's fine that they're only paying suspected underage girls who have just survived an earthquake to have sex with them.

A bit icky? The men who did this used young women who, by very definition of the reason Oxfam were in their country in the first place, were poor, vulnerable and and an easy target. It wasn't "a bit icky", it was an abuse of the women and an abuse of the trust that the Haitian earthquake survivors had in Oxfam.

*that