The Haiti sex scandal has engulfed the charity in a crisis unprecedented in its 76-year-history. After a week of sleepless nights and as attacks on aid escalate, its CEO is fighting to save Oxfam’s reputation in a new climate of public distrust
Anyone arriving at Oxfam HQ this week unaware of the headlines would have guessed at once that something was horribly wrong. Staff looked shell-shocked; the silence was the stunned hush of a sudden bereavement. One small team accustomed to handling 200 or so emails a day was overwhelmed by an inbox running into thousands. Social media staff appeared close to tears, deluged by a relentless torrent of outrage and abuse, dismay and disappointment. The chief executive couldn’t even bring himself to look. “I couldn’t cope with everything that’s out there. It hurts,” he says. Mark Goldring hasn’t slept for six nights and he looks stricken. “The last six days have been the most intense and challenging of my life.”
Oxfam has been reeling since the Times reported last week that several of the charity’s aid workers – including the country director, Roland van Hauwermeiren, had used prostitutes in Haiti while providing humanitarian work, following the 2011 earthquake. The men involved lost their jobs, but Oxfam is accused of covering up the scandal. Further revelations of sexual abuse in Oxfam shops, some against volunteers as young as 14, have emerged, engulfing the charity in a crisis unprecedented in its 76-year history.
Continue reading...from Voluntary Sector Network | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2oaFv5W
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