Women's rights advocates call for changes after WHO sex abuse in DRC

A women’s movement is calling for more women to lead World Health Organization emergency responses worldwide following the release of an independent report that found at least 21 aid workers employed by WHO were accused of sexual exploitation and abuse during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2018 to 2020.

Advocates are also calling for the perpetrators and WHO to face consequences — and for the agency to overhaul itself to safeguard women and girls from abuse.

“This is a dark day for WHO,” Dr. Roopa Dhatt, executive director of Women in Global Health, said in a statement. The group advocates for gender equality in global health leadership worldwide.

“We cannot dismiss this case by saying that a few abusive men may slip through the screening net in emergencies when experts must be deployed fast into areas of social chaos,” she said. “It is precisely in humanitarian contexts where the host population needs the highest degree of protection.”

Reports of sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers during the response to the 10th Ebola outbreak in DRC first surfaced in September 2020, when The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported that over 50 women had accused aid workers from different organizations, including WHO staff, of sexual exploitation and abuse. Soon afterward, WHO launched an investigation into the allegations via an independent commission.

On Tuesday, that commission revealed the extent of abuses the women experienced. It identified 83 alleged perpetrators, including 21 who worked for WHO during the response. Among the women and girls who came forward to accuse aid workers of abuse and rape was a 13-year-old. Presently, none of the men has been formally charged with a crime yet.

In a press briefing Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid out the organization’s plans in response to the findings, including a “wholesale reform” of WHO’s structures and culture.

Dhatt said the “hard work” must now begin: from sanctioning guilty parties, strengthening measures to ensure prevention of such acts, and implementing a survivor-centered approach, including reparations for the women who alleged abuses. Tedros has pledged to hold perpetrators to account and said that providing support to victims and survivors is a priority.

However, there is no provision in the United Nations system for financial reparations to the victims. During the press briefing, Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, a WHO veteran who now leads the organization’s work on the prevention and response to sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, said that “that does not stop us from making sure that funds are allocated for support and assistance as we move forward.”

Still, that raises a key question: “How do you estimate the price of the harm done to a 13-year-old girl left pregnant after rape?” Dhatt asked.

More women leaders

Dhatt also said changes within WHO should include appointing and employing more women across the agency’s emergency response operations.

“Women do not sexually abuse, exploit at the same rates [as] men,” she said. “This is very much a male problem, enabled by systems that allow men to behave however in ‘crisis’ without checks. Research has shown gender parity in teams leads to more ethical decision making.”

Of the 2,800 staff deployed in the response under WHO, more than 73% were men, according to the commission’s report. Men also held more than 77% of leadership roles.

In addition, Dhatt said, WHO needs to educate and inform host communities and engage local women’s organizations — whom, she said, need more investment, given their important role — when it establishes a program such as the Ebola response in DRC. Such groups can be the bridge to inform communities of the work WHO does, the jobs available for women, and how they can apply. WHO could also work with the groups to inform local communities about sexual exploitation and abuse, such as how they are defined and how to report incidents.

But the hardest part is changing organizational culture, she said, and doing that in a huge, dispersed organization such as WHO is a “massive challenge.”

Dhatt said one of WHO’s strongest programs on gender concerns violence against women, with the unit leading on this work having some “world-class specialists.” In 2019, WHO, in collaboration with other U.N. and donor agencies, published RESPECT, a framework for preventing violence against women that is geared toward policymakers and program implementers.

“It’s a loss that WHO didn’t apply the lessons that it knows and are in the RESPECT framework. It’s a loss that WHO did not engage its own women experts,” she said of the reports emerging from DRC. But these situations are “not restricted to WHO,” and WGH has seen the same pattern in other organizations, she added.

WGH and WHO will co-host a series of town halls to open discussion on the drivers of sexual exploitation and abuse and on institutionalizing changes in organizational culture. They’re expected to take place in October.

WGH is working with Gamhewage on the series, which was planned even before the report’s release.

“We hope our town halls will surface other weaknesses in the systems to be looked at, as we know there are many more perspectives that still need to be considered and issues to be surfaced,” Dhatt said.

‘There must be consequences’

Meanwhile, Asmita Naik, an international human rights consultant and longtime advocate for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers, told Devex that the aid sector has known about sexual exploitation and abuse committed by aid workers for over 20 years. These abuses are a “massive betrayal of trust” but “even more so when those aid workers are doctors.”

“A few words to say ‘sorry’ don't cut it,” she said. “There must be consequences.”

One consequence for WHO should be a loss of funding, with donors diverting funds to organizations “who do better,” she said.

“Of course, given WHO's role it is not feasible to stop all funding but there will be discretionary funding where WHO is competing with other organisations,” she said. “There needs to be a more functional competitive market where organisations who try harder are rewarded. Currently, organizations which turn a blind eye are getting little more than a slapped wrist.”

Though there are no indications WHO will lose funding over the DRC incident, such a scenario could have massive implications for the organization, which has already been dealing with funding challenges. WHO has been asking its member states for more predictable and flexible funding, while others have called for increases in assessed contributions to the U.N. agency.

“The idea of accountability is that it drives change by rewarding good behaviour and sanctioning bad,” Naik said. “I don't see what else could drive change other than organizations and individuals feeling they have something to lose unless they act.”

Dhatt said that WHO should meanwhile have its economists estimate the cost of abuse by 21 men in DRC that includes the costs of harm, future harm, and reputational damage.

“It would be a very sobering figure. I’m going to estimate it as not less than $1 million per abuser. Probably much more,” she said. “If other staff and managers knew that there was a million-dollar bill to pay for every man who chooses to sexually abuse women and girls, they might be less likely to turn a blind eye and treat it as ‘a personal matter.’”