Tag Archives: sexual

International aid workers having sex with people in countries in crisis

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I’ve written about the danger of sexual assault for women that work in aid and development, including PeaceCorps members (see the end of this blog for links). But, as I’ve researched, written and published these pieces, I’ve thought about women living in those developing countries, and how those local women are at even greater risk of sexual assault by the foreigners coming to their communities, either military, private enterprise or humanitarian workers. They are at MUCH greater risk, in fact. The Oxfam scandal reminds me that I’m overdue to focus on this.

If case you aren’t aware: earlier in February, The London Times reported that the U.K.-based agency Oxfam covered up an internal inquiry finding that the country director for the African country of Chad, Roland van Hauwermeiren, and members of his staff, had paid prostitutes in Chad for sex. Similar accusations emerged after van Hauwermeiren and his team were reassigned to Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake there. In an open letter responding to the allegations, van Hauwemeiren, a 68-year-old Dutch citizen, denied the allegations of sexual exploitation, saying he had “intimate relations” with a woman in Haiti during his tenure there, but that she was “not a prostitute. I never gave her money.”

Can local women in a developing country that has been devastated by war, corruption, natural disaster and/or poverty have consensual sex with foreign military members, business people or aid workers? Can a refugee? I say no. It’s impossible for someone in such a vulnerable position economically or socially to freely consent to sex with someone with that much power. 

About 20 years ago, there was an online community called the Aid Workers Network. I was one of the facilitators of that network, and we had some really incredible discussions about working in aid and development. It was through that network that I read an article about a humanitarian worker seeing his boss leaving a brothel, and it was the first time I had ever considered issues around aid workers and sex with local people – or even six with each other.

I’ve worked with international aid agencies since 2001, including in some developing countries, and in my briefings for working in those countries and with local people, people who are in highly-vulnerable positions because of their dire economic situation and because of the insecurity of their situation, I never once heard a caution about sexual relationships with local people, about power dynamics that many would say render it impossible to call a sexual relationship with a local woman and a foreign man “consensual.”

Sara Callaway, co-founder of Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike, noted in this article in The Guardian: “When women are starving and living in rubble, it is not prostitution. It is rape – what choice do women have?”

Other than on the now-defunct Aid Workers Network, I never once witnessed this as a topic of discussion among aid workers, including at the United Nations. I never felt that I was in a position of stability in terms of my job to dare to ask questions of human resources managers or anyone else, for that matter, regarding being on guard regarding sexual exploitation of local people by aid staff. I now so regret not asking the questions I wanted to, even if it would have jeopardized my career at the UN.

Here’s what I think needs to happen to keep local women safe and to change the culture at oh-so-many field offices regarding the safety of local women in their interactions with international staff:

  • Aid agencies MUST have written policies regarding international staff engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with local people or international staff that are subordinate to them, and these policies should be communicated when a person is hired and re-iterated regularly to ensure that no one can say, “Oh, I didn’t know!”
  • Visiting a prostitute in a developing country for sex, rather than as a part of official work with sex workers to ensure their basic rights, protect their health, etc., should be grounds for dismissal of international staff, as a violation of that agency’s written code of conduct. It should not matter if money was exchanged or not. Aid agencies cannot say they worry about the rights of women and then ignore that staff are visiting prostitutes for sex in developing countries. They must also consider what their policy will be regarding local male staff and their interactions with sex workers – this isn’t just about appropriateness; it’s also about abuse of power.
  • Aid agencies should publicly report how many accounts of sexual misconduct they investigate each year, the number of people dismissed each year for sexual harassment or abuse, and the processes they have for investigating and dealing with reports of sexual harassment or abuse. No need for names of people nor even of the countries where incidents happen – naming the countries where such happens could, in fact, endanger humanitarian workers in those countries.
  • Aid agencies should also say, in writing, publicly, if they are willing to rehire or reassign a staff member or contractor they suspect to have violated their policies regarding sexual misconduct or abuse, and what their policy is for providing a reference to such staff people regarding jobs at other agencies.

Oh, but what if an international aid worker truly falls in love with a local person? Then the aid worker can quit their job, get out of that power position, and get on a more level playing field with the love of their life.

There has never been a greater need for aid agencies. There has never been a greater need for foreign money to support those aid agencies. Aid agencies have prevented wars – no, not all of them, obviously. Aid agencies prevent genocides – no, not all of them, obviously. But without aid agencies, the amount of chaos happening in the world would be untenable. Aid agency scandals provide perfect scenarios for isolationists in government to cut foreign aid even further. Humanity, nor the environment, can survive without aid agencies – and they cannot survive if they do not address this very real, serious issue.

Related blogs:

Why don’t they tell? Would they at your org?

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Over the years, more than one person observed Jerry Sandusky, head of the nonprofit organization The Second Mile and former Penn State defensive coordinator, having sex with boys. Yet none of those people called the police, and none of the people in authority that they told about what they saw called police.

Why?

A leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the USA is being accused of sexual harassment by women who worked for a business association he lead, and by a woman who claims when she asked for help getting a job, he pressured her for sex (and, yes, the latter is sexual harassment – a coercive request for sex in exchange for a job, a good grade or other non-sexual “reward”). But people looked the other way, this latest accuser didn’t say anything at the time and for many years, and this man kept moving up in his political party to where he is now.

Why didn’t people in the know say more?

I have the answer to both of those questions: the consequences for the accuser or witness of saying something to people in authority or to the police seemed greater, and worse, than saying nothing. Consciously or unconsciously, people said to themselves, I don’t want to deal with this. This makes me uncomfortable. I may lose my job / never get a job if I say something. I don’t want this to define me, to follow me at this job and all jobs in the future. Maybe he’s better now or maybe someone else will deal with this. I don’t want to be the bad guy. It’s easier for me and this organization not to say anything.

I am not at all excusing the behavior of all the people who didn’t speak out. Penn State’s Athletic director and one of the university’s vice president have not only lost their jobs: they face possible prison time for lying to a grand jury and for not reporting to proper authorities the allegations of sexual misconduct. And that is exactly as it should be. Shame on them! It’s a shame that people in the Catholic Church who knew about sexual assaults by many priests weren’t similarly punished.

But I am challenging nonprofits, non-governmental agencies, universities, government departments and other mission-based programs – and particularly aid agencies with staff members in the field! – to take a hard look at not just their policies, but their culture.

Are you never hearing about inappropriate behavior by employees or volunteers at your organization not because nothing is happening, but because people don’t feel comfortable saying anything?

The consequences of a culture that, intentionally or not, discourages victims and witnesses from coming forward can even be deadly: Kate Puzey, a Peace Corps volunteer in the west African nation of Benin in 2009, was murdered in apparent retaliation for accusing a local Peace Corps staff member of child sexual assault. Her murder, and the poor reaction of the Peace Corps administration to this and to reported sexual assaults on Peace Corps members themselves, lead to a volunteer protection act, passed by Congress this year, establishing sexual assault policies and training to protect victims and whistle-blowers.

What about your organization?

  • Are you going to look at not only your policies, but your practice?
  • Do you do trainings and awareness activities for employees and volunteers regarding sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior every year?
  • What do you do to create a welcoming environment regarding the reporting of inappropriate behavior?
  • What do your individual employees and volunteers say about your organization’s culture, particularly in how comfortable they would feel reporting suspected inappropriate or even criminal behavior by someone, particularly a person in authority?

And in case you are wondering – yes, this is a personally important issue to me.

A Stupid Name for a Service for Nonprofits

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Which one of the following is something that a company actually thought was a great name for a product, event or service?

  • Market to Kids Like an Internet Pedophile! Reach Any Kid With Your Message!
  • Women’s Shelter Wife Beater T-shirts (fundraiser!)
  • Pimp My Cause: Marketing a Better World
  • Nonprofit Marketing: How to Sell Yourself Like a Whore (but not get screwed over!)
  • Effective Volunteer Management: Learn Best Practices from Southern Slave Owners
  • Pole Dancing for Foster Kids (fundraising event)
  • Learn to Screw the Competition and Get That Foundation Grant!

The for real idea is #3, Pimp My Cause: Marketing a Better World.

Yes, some genius thought that naming an online volunteering service after people who enslave women and children and force them to have sex for money would be a great idea for a product name marketed to nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations and others – including NGOs working against human trafficking.

In addition to the makers of this service thinking it was a great name, the United Nations Volunteers program did too, tweeting about it to their followers via its @volunteerplus10 account. And i-volunteer, in the UK, wrote about it and never once mentioned anything in their article about the wildly-inappropriate name (but you can, in the comments section of the story, as I have).*

The last time a nonprofit, NGO or volunteerism-focused organization did this that got my attention was back in 2008, when NetSquared and OneWorld – both of whom should have known better – thought “OneWorld.net Gets ‘Pimped’ at NetSquared DC Meetup” was a splendid headline. When I called them on it, their defense was:

We’re really just trying to be a little lighthearted…we use it in the most recent mainstream definition of the word.

Were I to use a racial slur in a little lighthearted way, because in the most recent mainstream definition of the word, it just means friend or man of a particular ethnicity, I have a feeling use of that word would cause quite a bit of outrage. Or what if I’d greeted a female UN Volunteer in an equally lighthearted and mainstream way, calling her bitch or ho or the dreaded “c” word? After all, those terms are used just as freely as pimp these days, and all the singers and actors and comedians interviewed about their use of these words swear they aren’t being derogatory to women.

In the world in which I work — and in the world that nonprofits, NGOs, UN agencies and UN Volunteers work — the word pimp means a person who engages in human enslavement, trafficking and sexual exploitation, and a show on MTV and use by techno hipsters and rap stars doesn’t change that. And in this world, there are millions of people enslaved by pimps. For real.

This is wrong on every level. Shame on everyone who doesn’t think so.

For more information about the sex trafficking of enslaved women and girls, and to understand why there is NOTHING cool or hip about slave traders, also known as “pimps”, please see:

Be sure to let UN Volunteers, the comments section of the i-volunteer article and the makers of this outrageously-named service just how wrong this is. Or, if you don’t feel that way, then feel free to choose any of those name ideas at the start of your article yourself, so I can blog about it.

Update: See the followup to this blog: It’s About Respect – a lesson for all social entrepreneurs, corporations and other for-profit sector folks who want to help nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations.

* May 5, 2017 update:

I challenge you to go to Twitter and type in this phrase, pimp my cause, into the search function. Not only will the Twitter account for this reprehensibly-named organization come up, but look at the tweets and profiles that also come up. This is what any potential client would also see if they went looking. It shows all-too-well why the word pimp should not be used in a nonprofit’s name.

UNV’s @volunteerplus10 Twitter account has been discontinued, as have the IVO, i-volunteer, sagesf.org and againstourwill.org web sites , and the Against Our Will video, What is a Pimp, is no longer available online – at least that I can find. I managed to find the IVO/i-volunteer page originally referred to at archive.org, via this URL:
http://www.i-volunteer.org.uk:80/newshound/marketing-a-better-world-pimp-my-cause/