LONDON – Oxfam’s chief executive said criticism of the charity following a sex abuse scandal had been disproportionate, according to comments published on Saturday.
In an interview with British daily the Guardian, Mark Goldring again apologised over allegations of sexual abuse by Oxfam staff in Haiti, which broke last week, and have shaken the whole aid sector.
“(But) the intensity and ferocity of the attacks makes you wonder, what did we do? We murdered babies in their cots?,” he was quoted as asking.
“Certainly, the scale and intensity of the attacks feels out of proportion to the level of culpability.”
UK-based Oxfam, one of the world’s biggest disaster relief charities, has neither confirmed nor denied the Haiti allegations, but has said an internal investigation in 2011 confirmed unspecified sexual misconduct occurred. It has also agreed not to bid for any new state funding until Britain’s government is satisfied that the charity meets appropriate ethical standards, development minister Penny Mordaunt said on Friday.
“Anything we say is being manipulated… We’ve been savaged,” Goldring also told the Guardian, which ran a full-page ad from the charity saying sorry for the “appalling behaviour that happened in our name”.
The CEO’s comments drew rebukes on Twitter, including from former interior minister Jacqui Smith, who posted: “Dear Mark Goldring. You’re not the victim here.”
Haiti’s president told Reuters on Friday that sexual misconduct by Oxfam staff was only the tip of an “iceberg”, and called for investigations into Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and other aid organisations which came to the country after a devastating earthquake in 2010.
Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday it had dealt with 24 cases of sexual harassment or abuse among its 40 000 staff last year, and dismissed 19 people as a result.
Britain has said it will deny cash to aid organisations that fail to come clean on abuse.
– Nampa-Reuters
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