Why did UN not act over ‘sex-for-food’ charity scandal?

Unpublished report implicates 40 aid
organisations whose workers traded food, oil and access to
education for sex

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Refugee families told UNHCR researchers of sex regularly being
traded for essentials such as food, oil, access to education and
even plastic sheeting for shelters.

According to The Sun, charity workers in a camp in Guinea
would tell women “a kilo of flour for sex”.

The list of organisations implicated includes the World Food
Programme, Save the Children, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the
International Rescue Committee, and the International Federation of
Red Cross Societies.

Claims against 67 people were passed to senior UNHCR officials
“in confidential lists”, however, The Times understands that fewer than ten were
dismissed and none were prosecuted.

The latest revalations come just months are the international
aid sector was rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct by Oxfam
aid workers in the aftermath of the 2011 Haiti earthquake. Oxfam’s
chief executive, Mark Goldring, announced he would be stepping
down last week in the wake of the scandal.

The Commons international development committee, which launched
an inquiry into the sexual exploitation in the aid sector following
the Oxfam allegations, has reportedly also been handed a copy of
the UN report, which one member said was “very important to our
inquiry because it shows the aid sector has had problems for many
years but has failed to sort itself out and now is the time for
renewal and reform”.