Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector: next steps

Aid organisations must be alert to the barriers that might prevent aid beneficiaries from reporting abuses. They should design sensitive reporting mechanisms with the local population, in order to give victims and survivors, and their families and friends a safe means to report their concerns and complaints. This might include face-to-face reporting if they prefer and will often involve community- based organisations and safe spaces for women to report, without necessarily going through the formal mechanisms set up by the aid providers. These community-based organisations should also be encouraged to hold open and frank conversations with aid beneficiaries about any concerns they have about the aid organisations operating in the area, to encourage them to open up about the experiences they have had.

We hope work to improve investigations at UK ODA receiving partners will continue under the merged FCDO in a way that encourages participation of the local population in the process. However, the culture of the sector (described in Chapter 4 of this report) is also key to ensuring that robust investigations are undertaken and complaints against perpetrators are upheld.

The FCDO should adopt the practices developed by DFID to improve investigations, including incorporating a requirement to report cases to the FCDO into funding agreements with partners. The Safeguarding Investigations Team should continue to check that reports of sexual exploitation and abuse are satisfactorily managed; and it should take-up the work proposed by DFID to improve the skills of first responders and investigators.

The work undertaken by the UK government and the sector as a whole to improve reporting and investigations and provide additional guidance is welcome, however, the lack of capacity in the sector and absence of common standard for investigations means that the outcomes of investigations are unreliable. Therefore, there is a risk that the employment cycle schemes could be used to retaliate against people who raise legitimate concerns and they might fail to properly identify and prevent the re-employment of perpetrators.

Employment cycle schemes which are designed to prevent perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse from being re-hired in the aid sector will only work if perpetrators are reported and robust investigations undertaken. Therefore, improving reporting and investigations should be prioritised. The FCDO should support initiatives to increase investigations capacity in the aid sector and work with its partners to ensure that the employment cycle schemes incorporate checks and balances to ensure they are just and fair to survivors and aid workers.

The FCDO should undertake a review of the cost and likely effectiveness of the employment cycle schemes at preventing perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse from being re-employed in the aid sector. (Paragraph 31) Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries 49

A full and transparent audit of whistleblowing in the aid sector has still not taken place. The FCDO should undertake an audit to provide a full understanding of how whistleblowing practices are being implemented and used, to give confidence that whistle-blowers are actively supported and not retaliated against by their organisations.

An audit will also help the FCDO along with other donors to hold aid organisations accountable for their treatment of whistle-blowers. The results of an audit could help donors to develop incentives for managers to encourage effective reporting on standards of conduct.

We are concerned that the use of non-disclosure agreements in the aid sector could be used to cover-up misconduct and will exacerbate power imbalances. As part of its due diligence processes the FCDO should require organisations it funds to report to it the number of non-disclosure agreements they have signed, to help the FCDO to ensure that its partners are not misusing NDAs to silence individuals who raise legitimate concerns.

We welcome the plans that the FCDO has to improve data relating to sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector. We believe this is a key step to understanding the scale of the problem and will enable the international community to better evaluate efforts taken to combat sexual exploitation and abuse. To facilitate the collection of data, the FCDO should make it clear to its partners that reporting cases of sexual exploitation and abuse will not be treated as a reason to be penalised, as long as they can demonstrate that they have robust mechanisms in place to deal with the misconduct. FCDO partners should report annually their total number of safeguarding allegations they receive and the number that are upheld. (Paragraph 43) Support for victims and survivors

It is imperative that aid beneficiaries who become victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse have access to the support and services they need, and they are informed how to safely use them. The potential need to provide these services should be factored in from the start of programmes, including at the planning stage. The FCDO should include the cost of supporting victims and survivors in grants and contracts for running programmes that it funds. The UK should work in partnership with victims and survivors to deliver the support they need, engaging with community- based organisations in country, to provide services to victims and survivors and providing funding and training if these are requested by those organisations. The FCDO should place requirements on its implementing partners to ensure that victims and survivors have free and safe access to the support and services they need and this support is not conditional on following a formal complaints process.

Although the aid sector faces additional challenges due the international nature of many of its perpetrators, the FCDO can use the experience of International Justice Mission to help inform how it can better support countries to strengthen their local justice mechanisms and ensure that survivors have confidence in local authorities to restrain their abusers and offer meaningful protection. (Paragraph 53) 50 Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries

We welcome the Minister’s announcement of new support for victims and survivors and we ask that he provides this Committee with an update on that programme of support once further details are available. We agree with the approach that the FCDO says it is taking to work with and strengthen in-country justice mechanisms. However, we believe it might be helpful for some victims and survivors to be able to contact UK systems directly. Embassy and High Commission staff already have experience of working with the local justice systems in the countries where they are based, through helping British nationals to navigate them. This experience could be used to help support victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse where the perpetrator was British or employed by a British aid organisation.

The FCDO should consider how it can join-up its diplomatic and aid functions to better support victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. UK High Commissions and Embassies in countries that receive UK Aid should develop the capacity to provide support to victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse where the perpetrator was British or employed by a British aid organisation. In particular, they should use their experience and contacts to help the victims and survivors to navigate the local legal system, where applicable.

The Government should consider how the provisions included in sections 66 to 68 of The Domestic Abuse Bill 2019–21 could be applied to aid workers who commit sexual offences against adults overseas. It should also seek to use existing legislation to prosecute British aid workers who commit offences against children, as this would provide a strong deterrent. (Paragraph 60) Power dynamics and culture

Aid organisations should try to design programmes in cooperation with the local populations where the programmes will be delivered. They should also take responsibility for ensuring that aid beneficiaries are fully informed of their rights and know what is and what is not acceptable behaviour by aid workers. They might disseminate this information themselves with cooperation from the local population, or work with local women’s rights organisations to share the information. Either way, it must be shared in a sensitive and context specific manner. Access to this information will empower women and help them to make informed decisions. The FCDO should prioritise organisations that demonstrate active engagement with local populations when it is tendering for aid delivery contracts.

It is important that the international aid sector recognises the risks that the covid-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it pose to women. Any reduction in aid supplies will make them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and should be avoided. This comes at the same time that safe spaces and confidential services for women are becoming more difficult to access. International aid organisations should work with local, community-based organisations in-country to continue to provide gender-based support and access to services throughout the covid-19 pandemic. This should be taken as an opportunity to consider how these services can be more locally led in future too.

It is important that aid organisations promote diversity and inclusion, including recruiting greater numbers of women and minority ethnic staff to senior leadership Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries 51 roles, to challenge and overcome discriminatory attitudes and cultures that permit sexual exploitation and abuse to perpetuate as occurred during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC.

Aid organisations must acknowledge the extreme power imbalances that have been a feature of the sector and design their programmes in a way that empowers beneficiaries. Managers should be held responsible for instilling an open and inclusive culture at their organisation that is actively anti-racist, where all staff are valued and safeguarding against sexual exploitation and abuse is ingrained in its daily operations. They should be reprimanded when it is clear this hasn’t happened.

Although aid organisations have taken many welcome steps to raise awareness and combat sexual exploitation and abuse, the changes have focussed on strengthening weak practices and policy development rather than transforming the power dynamics and enabling culture that have been embedded in the aid sector. Until a true transformation takes place, we fear that what happened during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC could continue to occur in humanitarian aid settings around the world. (Paragraph 83) Standards, accountability and regulation

We recommend that the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) is amended at the next opportunity to incorporate adequate measures to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse.

The measures promoted by the Safeguarding Leads Network appear to be consistent with DFID’s enhanced due diligence assessments for implementing partners and should be applied consistently, including to private sector partners, in order to strengthen safeguarding standards across all aspects of aid delivery. The FCDO should enforce the enhanced due diligence procedures developed by DFID and ensure compliance is more than a tick-box exercise at its delivery partners.

We welcome the enhanced due diligence central assurance assessments that DFID funded Keeping Children Safe to undertake. This is an important step towards developing an understanding of how well partner organisations that receive UK ODA funding are meeting the enhanced safeguarding due diligence requirements. However, only assessing the central offices is a severe limitation. The FCDO should undertake further monitoring of its implementation partners’ adherence to the enhanced safeguarding due diligence requirements in the countries where programmes are implemented to assess how they work with aid beneficiaries. The results of these assessments should be used to inform the FCDO’s ongoing relationship with these organisations. If their implementation of recommendations is found to be too slow then the FCDO should consider the measures it has at its disposal—such banning that organisation from applying for future contracts—to hold the organisation accountable for its actions.

The FCDO already undertakes work to strengthen NHRIs around the world and it could use the relationships it has built to explore how they can be utilised to provide impartial oversight, and an appeals function for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector. (Paragraph 97) 52 Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries

The Committee recognises that there remain gaps in impartial oversight led by donor organisations. In its response to this report the Government should set out how the CBCM model will provide an independent avenue to survivors to seek justice when the regular reporting mechanisms fail. It should also outline any other avenues it is exploring to ensure that proper oversight is introduced.

Using existing resources and mechanisms to undertake Enhanced DBS checks on aid workers who are UK nationals appears to be a sensible first step to preventing known perpetrators from being employed to these roles. The Government should amend the regulations to designate aid work as a regulated activity, requiring aid workers to undertake an Enhanced DBS check before they can work with aid beneficiaries. (Paragraph 100) The United Nations (UN)

The UN should not invoke immunity to protect perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse from robust investigation. The UK should work with the UN to ensure that UN immunity is not being used to protect perpetrators and call-out UN entities that have misused immunity provisions.

The UK is currently the biggest donor to the World Health Organization and the FCDO should seek assurances that lessons will be learned from this case. Failings identified should inform how the organisation will better interact with local populations and involve them in public health responses in future. The FCDO should set out how it holds the multilateral organisations that it funds to account when their safeguarding procedures are proven to be inadequate to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse by their employees.

Our evidence suggests that UN whistle-blowers continue to run the risk of retaliation if they speak out about sexual exploitation and abuse. The FCDO should consider what measures it has at its disposal to tackle this problem, including the funding mechanisms which can be applied, such as those used by the United States Congress to hold US aid delivery partners to account for their conduct. The UK should advocate to the UN on its responsibility to protect whistle-blowers and the important role they play in bringing abuses to light.

Since 2017 the UN has introduced several measures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse, investigate perpetrators and better support victims. We welcome initiatives such as the mapping of services undertaken by the Victims’ Rights Advocate and supported by UK funding, but we have not seen much evidence of the impact these initiatives have had to improve the experience of aid beneficiaries on the ground. The UN Special Coordinator and Victims’ Rights Advocate have important roles to play in ensuring tangible improvement is achieved. To ensure sustained high- level leadership on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, the role of the Special Coordinator should be a full-time position.

The UN trust fund for victims is an important resource for ensuring that beneficiaries who experience sexual exploitation and abuse at the hands of UN personnel receive the support they need. The UK should consider providing funding for the trust fund for victims to contribute to the vital services it supports. (Paragraph 117) Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries 53

We welcome ICAI’s review of sexual exploitation and abuse in international peacekeeping. A culture of impunity among peacekeeping troops has contributed to the persistence of sexual exploitation and abuse. Perpetrators need to know that if they are caught, they will be punished. The UK should design its programmes for preventing sexual exploitation and abuse in a way that seeks to tackle apathy among middle and senior level leadership in peacekeeping missions and builds a strong safeguarding culture.

The UK should work with the UN to strengthen monitoring and oversight of peacekeeping missions, and to ensure that peacekeeping is properly resourced so that the UN can refuse troops from countries that have a history of unaddressed misconduct. (Paragraph 125) The role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

The FCDO should ensure that any future procurement code incorporates the most stringent measures formerly used by either department to safeguard against sexual exploitation and abuse in its supply chains.

The measures set out in the Strategic Vision should be taken into consideration when the FCDO is deciding which programmes to prioritise and projects to improve gender equality should not be side-lined due to a lack of clear performance indicators.

For transparency, future progress reports should include an update on each aspect of the commitments, even if it is a nil return.

In recent years DFID has included a specific safeguarding section in its annual reports and accounts. In 2019–20 this included important data on the number of safeguarding reports that DFID received. This is good practice and should be replicated by the FCDO.

The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative has lost its way since Foreign Secretary Hague left the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The permanent team of staff dedicated to the initiative is small and funding has dwindled. Similar to our findings for the aid sector, it could be improved through better engagement with local populations. The FCDO should use the merger as an opportunity to reinvigorate the PSVI and the Gender Equality Division should develop a coherent strategy for the initiative which is coordinated with the wider priorities of the Unit. The FCDO should consider how the Research and Evidence Division can help to improve monitoring and learning so the initiative can be strengthened in future and adopt longer funding cycles to enable long-term planning.

We hope the FCDO will work positively with its implementing partners to combat sexual exploitation and abuse in ODA funded programmes. The FCDO should ensure that safeguarding is properly budgeted for in programme contracts and is not undermined by wider value for money requirements. It should also show leadership on this issue among other UK ODA spending departments. (Paragraph 140) 54 Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries