LONDON: Aid agencies in Britain have reported 80 cases where they have caused harm, or a risk of harm, since a sexual abuse scandal broke last month, a watchdog body said on Monday at a summit to tackle sexual exploitation in the sector.
Some reports related to allegations of sexual abuse of people receiving aid, including children, the Charity Commission said.
Most of the 80 cases were historic, but seven were from the past year.
Aid minister Penny Mordaunt challenged aid agencies to up their game at the London meeting and said there would be “no hiding place” for predators.
“We will find you. We will bring you to justice. Your time is up,” she said.
Reports that staff at British charity Oxfam paid for sex with prostitutes in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake have left the aid world reeling.
The sector has been further rocked by allegations that women in Syria have been exploited by men delivering aid for charities and UN agencies.
Mordaunt, who co-hosted Monday’s summit with the Charity Commission, told aid agencies the government would not fund those that failed to meet its tough new “safeguarding standards” introduced on Monday.
Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has asked 179 aid agencies to provide assurances regarding their operations, and confirmation that they have referred any concerns to the relevant authorities.
All have replied, but DFID is seeking further clarification from 37 of them, Mordaunt said.
The Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales, said 26 of the 179 organizations had made 80 “serious incident” reports.
These included “reports of allegations or actual incidents of abuse, including sexual abuse of staff, volunteers and beneficiaries, including children,” it said in a statement.
Some of the 80 reports related to procedural lapses that led to protection risks rather than to actual incidents.
DFID’s beefed-up standards aim to ensure better protection of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
“Our standards will be world-leading. They will be tough and exacting,” Mordaunt said.
The summit will brainstorm ideas around improving staff vetting, supporting whistleblowers and abuse survivors, addressing internal power imbalances, and creating an independent body to promote external scrutiny.
DFID also announced on Monday that an internal review that examined allegations of sexual misconduct by its staff showed there had been 14 substantiated cases since 1995.
The majority related to sexual harassment between staff members, DFID said. None involved sexual exploitation in exchange for aid.
A number of other cases are still under investigation, but DFID did not elaborate.
DFID’s permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, told agencies they must “seize this moment ... to ensure we bring some lasting good out of this crisis.”
The British parliament’s International Development Committee also launched an inquiry on Monday into the sexual exploitation and abuse scandal.
British aid agencies report more abuse cases after Oxfam scandal
British aid agencies report more abuse cases after Oxfam scandal
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of arming rebels in escalating war of words
- The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea
- The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian police said they had seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, an allegation Eritrea dismissed as a falsehood intended to justify starting a war.
The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea, longstanding foes who reached a peace deal in 2018 that has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony.
The police said in a statement late on Wednesday they had seized 56,000 rounds of ammunition and arrested two suspects this week in the Amhara region, where Fano rebels have waged an insurgency since 2023.
“The preliminary investigation conducted on the two suspects who were caught red-handed has confirmed that the ammunition was sent by the Shabiya government,” the statement said, using a term for Eritrea’s ruling party.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told Reuters that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party (PP) was looking for a pretext to attack.
“The PP regime is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years,” he said.
In an interview earlier this week with state-run media, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said the Prosperity Party had declared war on his country. He said Eritrea did not want war, but added: “We know how to defend our nation.”
The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998, five years after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia. They signed a historic agreement to normalize relations in 2018 that won Ethiopia’s Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Eritrean troops then fought in support of Ethiopia’s army during a 2020-22 civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
But relations soured after Asmara was frozen out of the peace deal that ended that conflict. Since then, Eritrea has bristled at repeated public declarations by Abiy that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access — comments many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view as an implicit threat of military action.
Abiy has said Ethiopia does not seek conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of sea access through dialogue.
