More than 50 countries ask the WHO for explanations for accusations of sexual abuse

More than 50 WHO countries expressed their “concern” on Friday over information suggesting that the leaders of the UN agency failed to point out cases of sexual abuse committed by members of the organization.

“We express our concern after media reports suggesting that the WHO leadership was aware of cases of sexual exploitation, abuse and sexual harassment and failed to report them as required by the UN and WHO protocol,” the text underlines. presented by Canada during the World Health Assembly.

The text is signed among others by the European Union, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico.

In mid-May, new allegations of sexual abuse allegedly committed by aid workers, primarily from WHO, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were made public.. “Since January 2018, we have shown our deep concern about these allegations of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, as well as abuse of authority, in WHO activities,” reads this joint statement.

Member countries and WHO leadership, including its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “discussed this issue in a transparent and vigorous manner” last week.. Behind this diplomatic vocabulary there are certainly heated debates.

According to an investigation by the specialized agency The New Humanitarian (TNH) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation published on May 12, “22 women from the Congolese city of Butembo testified that male humanitarian workers were on the scene due to an Ebola outbreak ( …) offered them work in exchange for sexual relations”.

Last year, a similar investigation in the city of Beni uncovered 51 similar cases.. Fourteen of the women “declared that the men had identified themselves as WHO workers”, according to this investigation, which places the events in 2019.

On Friday, the director general of the WHO spoke before this text was published and recalled that he had created an independent commission that must deliver a report at the end of August to clarify these accusations.. “I speak on behalf of all my colleagues and the organization when I say that we take these allegations very seriously,” he said.