Oxfam isn’t alone: UN peacekeepers also exploit women in their care

A Times investigation has uncovered the terrible fact that women and possibly young girls in Haiti have been exploited by the very people paid to keep them safe: the staff of Oxfam, which sucks up £300 million a year from us in public and private money. 

It’s a shock — and it’s not. Under the cover of moral superiority, out of sight and out of the media, all manner of NGOs, charities, and the saintly UN have committed some of the most disgusting crimes against the world’s most vulnerable women and children, and got away scot free. Not even the hyper-sensitive  #MeToo movement seems to give the shadow of a damn.

Though he exploited Haitian women, Oxfam’s country director in Haiti, Roland van Hauwermeiren was “allowed to resign” so as not to embarrass the organisation.  This ‘culture of impunity’ is rife within the charitable sector and in particular the UN. 

It first occurred to me in 2008 — long after I should have known better — that the UN might not always be a force for purest good.