A
recent report to the United Kingdom Parliament has revealed the horrifying
extent of child rape and sexual abuse among aid workers in some of the world’s
worst trouble spots.
The
report, by the International Development Committee, rejected any suggestions
that the abuse was a series of isolated incidents involving a few ‘bad apples’,
stating that the problem was ‘endemic’ throughout the aid sector.
Commenting
on the report, a former worker for the United Nations and the Red Cross, Andrew
MacLeod cited an “institutional failure to crackdown on paedophilia” as one of
the reasons he quit the sector.
He
recommends people should be jailed, not just for taking part in the crimes, but
for failing to report them.
This
must happen — and happen quickly.
However,
I draw the line when MacLeod calls for the “celebrity ambassadors” of
international aid to suspend their roles until the situation is resolved. Why
does he single out these people, mostly high-profile actors and other
personalities? Or is he suggesting a general pause in the work of aid agencies until
a resolution is found?
We
are faced with an appalling choice here. Emasculate aid work while this endemic
problem is stamped out — and allow more people to die of starvation or
unattended injuries than the thousands who are already dying every day.
Allow
aid work to continue at maximum effort — and risk serial abusers being let
loose on vulnerable people.
A
choice has to be made, and I choose the latter as the lesser of two terrible
evils.
Never
in recorded history have so many of the world’s people been in such dire need
of relief; never has so much of that need been created, not by famine and other
natural disasters, but by deliberate acts of inhumanity — by the persecution
and slaughter wreaked by the strong against the powerless.
Every
day Yemini civilians are pounded by a Saudi Arabian coalition. Innocent men
women and children are dying in industrial numbers.
Every
day, Syrian men, women and children are terrorised by the overwhelming might of
Russian and Syrian Government forces; ditto Myanmar; ditto Afghanistan and the
countless smaller but by no means less deadly conflicts that plague the African
continent.
In
addition, aid workers face unprecedented dangers in the field. No longer is the
Red Cross on ambulances a guarantee of safe passage.
Rather,
hospitals and their staff are deliberately targeted so injured opposition
fighters can’t be patched up and put back in the field; aid convoys are
attacked and the supplies they carry looted to feed and treat the combatants
rather than their victims.
The
globalised and often chaotic nature of aid work caused by this decline into
barbarism is a challenge when it comes to aid agencies screening their workers.
Often it has been a case of taking anyone who is willing and foolhardy (and
devious) enough to put their hand up.
As
CARE International UK stated: “The push to get lifesaving assistance… into the
field quickly often comes at the expense of good protection analysis, and steps
that would reduce the risks of unintended harm — including sexual exploitation
and abuse — are skipped or deferred.”
The
UK report has put aid agencies on notice. Image is crucial if donations are to
continue. They will — are finding a way.
Of
course it would help if Western Governments provided additional funds to assist
agencies in properly screening, and properly remunerating aid workers for the
appalling risks they take.
Instead,
the first world is sitting back and accepting the chaos spreading over large
areas of the planet. Aid budgets are being slashed and in many cases the arms
they sell into these areas are active contributors to the slaughter.
The
United Kingdom report has identified one huge problem — but it is by no means
the only one.
*Graham Cooke is a
regular and long-time donor to UNICEF and intends to remain so.
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