The World Health Organisation (WHO) has promised to take ‘robust action’ following accusations of sexual abuse against its humanitarian workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The New Humanitarian (TNH) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported claims of aid workers raping more than 20 women in the eastern part of the country.
TNH and the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported that they spoke to 22 women in Butembo who said male aid workers responding to an Ebola crisis in the country offered them jobs in exchange for sex.
According to the investigation by organisations, 14 of the women said that the men identified themselves as WHO workers.
‘One of the women died after a botched abortion while trying to hide her pregnancy from her husband and children’, the investigators quoted her sister as saying.
An important commercial hub in the northern province of North Kivu, Butembo, was one of the epicentres of the tenth Ebola outbreak that killed 2,200 people between 2018 and 2020.
WHO, which had played a leading role in the response to that outbreak, said an internal investigation identified two potential victims, while 14 complaints, including those of alleged rape, were filed against the organisation, according to the same investigation.
‘WHO is committed to taking prompt and robust action, including collaborating with relevant national authorities on criminal proceedings, in all cases where WHO staff may be found guilty of perpetrating [sexual exploitation and abuse]’, WHO Spokeswoman, Marcia Poole, said.
One of the accusers, in a WhatsApp message shared with reporters, noted that an aid worker said, ‘If I give you work, what will you give me in return’?
According to her, the message came from a Congolese man she met in a bar in 2019 who had arrived in a vehicle with the WHO logo.
‘You are a woman. I think you know what you can give me’, the same message continued.
The woman said she had sex with the man and was then employed by WHO as a cleaner. She got pregnant and was forced to have an abortion, according to her.
A total of seven organisations are implicated in the alleged misconduct of their employees, including the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
Others are the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the International Medical Corps (IMC), and the DRC Ministry of Health.
In 2020, a similar investigation by TNH in the nearby town of Beni reported 51 Congolese women who said they had been sexually exploited by employees of UN agencies and major NGOs involved in the fight against the same Ebola outbreak.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Photo source: World Bank Photo Collection
