After an internal investigation into sexual misconduct allegations was released on Monday 12th February, it’s been revealed that senior members of Oxfam had hired prostitutes during a relief mission in Haiti in 2011 and no doubt the British public are disgusted. A charity having been praised for countless operations in the face of disaster, and having been given £176 million from the UK government and other public authorities last year alone, this betrayal comes not only to donators of money, but also more importantly those in need of aid. This comes as a definite shock, but will it and should it go on to pollute our perception of charities in the future?
The 2011 findings show that members of staff were found guilty of bullying, sexual misconduct and intimidating witnesses, on top of allegations that the country director of Haiti for the charity, Roland Van Hauwermeiten, used prostitutes on his residence. With revelations like this, it’s hardly surprising that Haiti’s President, Jovenel Moise described the case as “an extremely serious violation of human dignity.” With 10,000 workers in 900 different countries, Oxfam has a global reach in trying to help some of the most vulnerable people in the world, and while countless operations have been instrumental in delivering aid to those in the midst of crisis, this complete lack of professionalism has left the 75-year trust the public had for the charity in a web of suspicion. Moise has also called this the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to other charities covering up sexual abuse claims, referencing 17 Doctors Without Borders (also known under the name Medecins Sans Frontieres) workers who were repatriated from Haiti during the time of the earthquake and while some worry it could manipulate people against charities and aid, we need to consider how this incident was allowed to happen and how the ‘charity framework’ itself (the actual structure of these charities as organisations) can enable misconduct from workers.
The truth is, when first founded in 1942, Oxfam was made to ease the famine of Nazi-occupied Greece, with the founding members being independent to the government, far from the multimillionaire business it is today. When we think of charities we think of benevolence and spending money for the people most in need, which is why the misuse of money in such an appalling manner causes such distrust among the general public, but we must remember that modern charities today are global organisations – money doesn’t go into the most sustainable ways of helping people, rather it goes into maintaining the charity so it can pay people to help those in the midst of crisis.
In such a way, we miss the sole purpose of charities – getting straight to those in need – and when members of the public pay in with the intention of being benevolent, only for this ‘charity framework’ to be exposed and the financing of people instead of change, it destroys the fantasy of these organisations and shows how often they can be tainted by other people in between the donator and those in need, as demonstrated by the recent scandal. It makes us as a society wonder what we should actually do and how we can reach people without paying a company that needs to maintain itself first. As inappropriate as the incident is, it’s a breach of workplace conduct first because Oxfam is a money-incentivised employer, which is one of the reasons we’ve only found out about it in 2018.
After all of this and as sad as it may be, Oxfam is another corporation. Although these findings have overlooked amazing work they’ve done to help people, surely something needs to be done where there aren’t as many middle-men like Roland Van Hauwermeiten being funded. Our perception of charities has been damaged; we may not see them as squeaky-clean and without corruption anymore but whenever we give donations to huge establishments, the risk is always there. I only hope this sort of behaviour isn’t repeated and the focus remains the people who need it the most.
image source: https://www.instagram.com/oxfaminternational/
