Report Finds W.H.O. Workers Sexually Exploited Women During Ebola Mission

September 9, 2021

Women were sexually exploited and abused by aid workers in order to obtain or keep jobs during the Ebola Crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A young girl washes her hands at a checkpoint at the border between Uganda and the DRC. UK Department for International Development. CC BY 2.0

According to a report commissioned by the agency’s head, World Health Organization workers sexually abused women while in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to aid the Ebola outbreak from 2018 to 2020. The report found that 83 people participated in the abuse, and in 21 cases, those involved were confirmed to be WHO officials. The investigation started in September 2020 when The New Humanitarian and the Thomas Reuters Foundation published a report investigating abuse claims. The report found that 31 out of 50 women interviewed reported abuse and exploitation from men working for the WHO. In response, leadership in the World Health Organization ordered an independent commission to investigate. After working in Beni, one woman interviewed by the commission stated, “To get ahead in the job, you had to have sex … Everyone had sex in exchange for something. It was very common.” In addition, women reported that they were sexually harrassed and faced exploitation in order to keep their jobs, get paid or get a promotion. In some cases women were dismissed from their jobs when they refused to have sex with supervisors.

The commission established that the majority of the victims were already vulnerable because of precarious social and economic status, and women with more education and economic power were less vulnerable to abuse. The report found that there was a “systematic tendency to reject all reports of sexual exploitation and abuse unless they were made in writing”. While the WHO has training in place to prevent sexual abuse, the report found that training for employees did not happen until November 2019, months after the outbreak had been declared an emergency. Only 371 out of 2,800 workers attended the training. Additionally, men make up the vast majority of employees during the crisis, averaging 73.4% overall. The report cites that men held 77.49% of leadership positions and 91.52% of operations support and logistic positions.

The WHO was not the only organization accused of abuse, The New Humanitarian’s investigation found that there were allegations against workers at World Vision, Unicef and Alima, among others. Additionally, the investigation found that underreporting was prevalent in these cases, with one woman stating, “Why would you even ask if I reported it?” The New Humanitarian found that many women were unaware of how to report abuse or exploitation at all. Most aid agencies claimed they had received no reports of abuse, and the WHO stated they had received only a small number of complaints. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the WHO, apologized to victims and said it was his top priority to hold perpetrators accountable during a press conference after the report’s publication.

Congo Faces New Ebola Outbreak Amid Global Pandemic

July 23, 2020

The World Health Organization has called on the international community for financial support and aid in combating the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This latest outbreak was announced by the country’s government on June 1 and has seen 56 cases reported in the Equateur province, a region which has been a hot spot for the disease in recent years.

Ebola is a deadly disease with outbreaks occurring primarily in Africa. In humans, the virus can be caused by one of four virus species: Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Tai Forest virus and Bundibugyo virus. The virus spreads through direct contact with organic matter from infected humans and animals. Common symptoms include fever, aches, weakness, fatigue, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, and hemorrhaging, bleeding and bruising.

This latest outbreak comes as the 11th in a long line of Ebola outbreaks in the Congo since the disease was first discovered in 1976. A couple of weeks ago, the WHO celebrated the end of the country’s 10th outbreak, which began in August 2018. That Ebola outbreak was the deadliest recorded in the DRC and second worst in history, seeing 2,280 deaths.

According to The New York Times, the WHO has gathered $1.75 million to combat the outbreak, but this funding would only last the organization for a couple more weeks. Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, called for additional funding to be allocated toward vaccinations, testing and treatment, as well as contact tracing and health education resources.

“Responding to Ebola in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is complex, but we must not let COVID-19 distract us from tackling other pressing health threats,” Dr. Moeti said. “The current Ebola outbreak is running into headwinds because cases are scattered across remote areas in dense rainforests. This makes for a costly response as ensuring that responders and supplies reach affected populations is extremely challenging.”

Dr. Moeti also stated that over 12,000 people living in the Equateur province had been vaccinated since the outbreak was first reported in June.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed Dr. Moeti’s sentiments in a recent news release on the situation.

“This is a reminder that COVID-19 is not the only health threat people face,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said. “Although much of our attention is on the pandemic, WHO is continuing to monitor and respond to many other health emergencies.”

This call for funding follows a challenging six months for the organization, as the WHO has partnered with global leaders to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While much of the world has been supportive of the organization, the United States has been an exception. President Donald Trump pulled the country out of the WHO in late May over concerns about Chinese influence, with the withdrawal going into effect on July 6, 2021. The U.S. is the organization’s single largest financial contributor, having provided over $400 million in 2019.

President Trump has not publicly commented on this latest Ebola outbreak. While the U.S. directed $21 million in aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development for the 10th outbreak in 2019, it is unclear whether the country will direct any funding toward this latest outbreak’s relief efforts.

The WHO is expected to continue Ebola relief operations within the Equateur province for the foreseeable future, as governmental agencies such as the United Nations have directed additional funding to the organization. However, it is unclear how long this funding will last and how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will complicate these relief measures.

Jacob Sutherland

is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

“A displaced child in a Syrian refugee camp.” *Plus8gmt*. CC BY-ND-NC 2.0

Covid-19 Crisis Management in the Face of Syria’s Ongoing Refugee Crisis

April 16, 2020

Refugee populations and internally-displaced persons are increasingly at risk of infection during the growing Covid-19 crisis. Focusing on Syria’s refugee and informal settlement populations, organizations such as the International Rescue Committee have begun to outline and employ a strategy for crisis management among these incredibly at-risk populations.

Escalating concerns about rapidly-rising case counts, economic shock, and ill-equipped hospital facilities have dominated the majority of front-page coverage of the novel Coronavirus, or Covid-19. Noticeably absent from much of the discussion is a critical locus in dire need of crisis response efforts: refugee camps and settlement populations, especially those that have developed in and around Syria in the nine years of violence, beginning in 2011.

Even among the ruling classes, the Middle East has been hit incredibly hard by the virus; as many as 150 members of the Saudi royal family are known to have contracted the virus.

So far, Syria has reported 29 cases of the novel coronavirus, resulting in two fatalities. However, a critical dimension of the rapidly-evolving Covid-19 crisis is the lack of adequate testing resources, even in countries typically looked to as leaders in crisis-management and resilience, such as the United States. Consequently, with so many internally displaced persons and a crippled healthcare system, it is difficult to say exactly how many cases of Coronavirus are actually present in Syria. Given the crowding and scarcity of resources in refugee camps and informal settlements, the ever-growing risk of Covid-19 infection among these communities has been labeled a “death sentence” for refugees.

Moreover, as of Tuesday, April 14th, President Trump announced a freeze in the $400 million provided yearly to the World Health Organization by Washington. Global health officials are urging the President to reconsider, given the state of the global emergency. The WHO has partnered with the Syrian Ministry of Health in order to provide protective equipment, testing resources, as well as services such as isolation and contact tracing. The majority of recent WHO efforts have been concentrated in Northwest Syria, home to the last opposition stronghold, and as a result, the most violence and internal displacement.

In a recent interview with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary for the U.K and current President and C.E.O. of the International Rescue Committee, outlined the critical dimensions of crisis response in refugee camps along Syria’s borders and informal settlements concentrated in urban areas. In his interview, Miliband emphasizes the importance of information campaigns designed to reach all corners of at-risk populations, which fight disinformation and spread facts regarding best health practices in the face of the virus.

Taking notes from failures and successes of the ongoing Ebola crisis, Miliband also extols the importance of trust in crisis response. In order to foster this sense of trust inside camps and settlements, the IRC employs local staffers, and opens its health facilities to members of the population surrounding the refugee camps and informal settlements. By opening the facilities to all members of the local population, the IRC is able to foster cooperation and reduce social strain. Moreover, because the virus cannot be contained, in providing services to all in need to the best of its ability, public health responders such as the IRC are able to ultimately reduce the number infected inside the at-risk refugee camps.

It is this sense of cooperation which Miliband outlines as another pillar of effective crisis response: both in a cross-organizational sense when considering local hotspots of crisis relief, as well as in a global sense. As Miliband acknowledges, it is not necessarily unreasonable for a nation to prioritize its own citizens, but, put simply, viruses know no borders. As Miliband goes on to say, “To my mind, Covid-19 is a disease of the connected world, where all of us are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, where the only solution has got to be a universal solution.” It is then only through collaboration, not protectionism, that the risk of widespread infection can be mitigated among refugee communities in and around Syria.