14. International Safeguarding Scandals

Welcome to episode 14 of Justice Studio Sessions. In this episode we discuss three international safeguarding scandals.

In 2018 it was discovered that senior Oxfam staff had paid local young women for sex whilst working in the response to the Haiti earthquake. The Oxfam Haiti incident was not an isolated incident, however. In this episode Marianne talks about the Oxfam Scandal as well as two other scandals that shook the international aid community but took place earlier: These are the UN DynCorp Trafficking case in Bosnia in early 2000s, and the UNHCR Peacekeepers scandal in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone around the same time.

Please be advised that this episode contains distressing content.

References

Bosnia:

Bolkovac, K & Lynn, C. 2011. The Whistleblower. Palgrave Macmillan: New York.

Human Rights Watch. Nov 2002. HOPES BETRAYED. Volume 14 No. 9 (D)

Jennings, K. 2017. The Immunity Dilemma. E-International Relations p.1

Simm, G. ‘Regulating sex in peace operations: Dyncorp in Bosnia.’ Open Access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crtm

Martina Vandenberg, Complicity, Corruption, and Human Rights Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol34/iss3/3

West Africa

UNHCR and Save the Children-UK Sexual Violence & Exploitation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone 2001 to 2002.

IASTC Report 13 June 2002

UK House of Commons. Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector. 23 July 2018.

Haiti

Oxfam GB Haiti Investigation Final Report – Confidential 2011

Charity Commission. 2019. ‘Summary Findings and Conclusions Oxfam.’

Charity Commission. 2019. ‘Statement of the Results of an Inquiry into Oxfam .’

The New Humanitarian: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2018/02/13/exclusive-oxfam-sexual-exploiter-haiti-caught-seven-years-earlier-liberia

FCDO progress report on safeguarding against sexual exploitation abuse and harassment (SEAH) in the international aid sector.

Links:

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