Submission to the International Development Committee: Inquiry on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the Aid Industry
- Reports of sexual exploitation and abuse in Oxfam's Haiti activities are described as the tip of the iceberg of misconduct by humanitarian actors in Haiti and similar countries.
- No mandatory sector-wide verification mechanism exists to assess compliance with international accountability standards, and voluntary mechanisms are under-utilized and inconsistent.
- Oxfam's failure to refer abuse allegations to Haitian authorities shielded those responsible from judicial consequences and followed prevailing practice, since current standards leave criminal referral to the investigating agency's discretion.
- The submission recommends an independent, sector-wide external inquiry, clearer Codes of Conduct, and single, secure, community-informed grievance mechanisms with referral of criminal conduct to national authorities.
This April 2018 written submission to the UK Parliament's International Development Committee inquiry on sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in the aid sector was jointly prepared by barrister Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers, IJDH staff including Executive Director Brian Concannon, and the Disaster Law Project. Prompted by revelations of SEA in Oxfam's Haiti operations, which the authors describe as the tip of the iceberg of misconduct by humanitarian actors, it identifies deficiencies in existing safeguarding policies, Codes of Conduct and grievance mechanisms, and notes the absence of any mandatory sector-wide verification of compliance with international accountability standards.
It recommends that organizations clearly define and prohibit SEA, refer criminal conduct to national authorities in host countries such as Haiti, and build transparent, accessible and secure grievance mechanisms with community input. Its central call is for an independent, external, sector-wide inquiry beyond the IDC, either UK-specific or multinational and multi-donor funded, modeled in part on the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, with public hearings in affected communities.
How to cite
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), 2018, Submission to the International Development Committee: Inquiry on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the Aid Industry, https://www.ijdh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Written-evidence-Doughty-Street-Chambers-Institute-for-Jastice-Democracy-in-Haiti-and-the-Disas.pdf