the first moment I heard back in 2011 we sent an investigation team also it's not true that it wasn't transparent we put a press release out when the investigation team was investigating we put a press release out after that as well second the Charity Commission said they're still awaiting the full report and the man at the center of this your country director Rowland van Howell Myron was not even fired let's take one at a time the Charity Commission said at the time because we told them we informed them about it reported about it and they
say that said that there were no regulatory concerns about it that's what happened at the time we also actually told if it why did they do that they're still awaiting the full report well still awaiting that reply do you know well I don't know because I'm not still there but at the time there was no question that they had said that they would consider happy that the trustees were taking this seriously in dealing with it they were happy that a man hadn't even been fired for having exploitative sex with prostitutes in a disaster strewn country
like Haiti well let me talk about that that's the second point of the question the reason that well you go in you investigate the first thing they did was talk to the country director at that time he confessed to well his own behavior at least we were very concerned if I remember right that there we thought there were more people in this and we wanted to make sure that we could investigate and get all of that out which is why because he's already said I'll resign I'll go that we said that we would do that
and that took some that took some well director had admitted to exploitative sexual behavior predatory behavior with with young men prostitutes in a country he was meant to be helping yeah and you just thought fine he no of course not you thought well let you know you know eat him an extra month what because we wanted him there because what we were afraid of was that there were more people there and we didn't immediately want that exposed and we wanted to make sure we could get in and also make sure that there wasn't any bullying
of the people now so you use somebody who was basically an offender to help you with the investigation he was an offender because he had used prostitutes he was a 68 year old man using an Oxfam Villa to invite young women to use for sex in a country that had just been through a devastating earthquake what bit of that was normal or accepted but not normal except well that's what we said at the time and I would say now that was completely unacceptable which is why we did the investigation and why at nine people that
were invested in it yeah because you cut a deal with him why would you cut a deal because we wanted to make sure that we could get the whole lot of them dealt with and out of the way when it became clear that there was a group of men who were doing this do you know works now do you know whether three others I hired of course I wouldn't I'm not in Oxfam I haven't been in Oxon for five years he was 68 I doubt if he's worked at all frankly but there are three others
now that we don't know where they are we would we would never well they they were they have gone and have to make their own lives we would never give them a new apron second we don't even know who those people are they have not been identified for all you know they could be working in another aid agency they could be working with young women again all with children what we did quite a lot at that time with all the agencies and being clear all the agencies not in Haiti only but in countries where their
emergencies where there are conflicts we were all working and working together to try to make sure that actually nobody that we knew was not responsible who was who had that sort of behavior would actually come into any other age agencies that had to be done there are there are actually there are personnel issues do you actually know where these people I don't know no I'm not working I would not know because I've been out of Oxfam for five years you would have to ask somebody else but isn't it extraordinary that you knew about all this
for seven years and yet this is only grant alight the kind of allegations moving no no not at all not at all we knew as I said we went in and we investigated fully out of nine people that were investigated only to new regs already in problem behaviour on the part of Oxfam just just to clarify I I don't think so you may have done something different in the past but these are very difficult circumstances what what I mean is we we investigated in MIT what I would expect an organization to do is as you
know these sorts of things are around in all sorts of parts of the world what you expect the agency to do though is to investigate fully and then to actually deal with those people and and actually you know stop them working and get them out and all the rest of it so no yes I and that you know that gets mounting quietly carry on payment it was leave me do a deal which is what we no no no we dismissed four of those as well do you know what your your mission statement is championing equal
rights little women helping marginalized women claim their rights he says why wouldn't your first instinct be to say this is shocking we are rooting it out we are telling the world that we've done what we did do we did do we both we as I said we put out a press release about when the investigation went in we do think nothing new nothing new today nothing new about the story at all what only things that come in it that and we have no idea where they've come from do you think that your country director in
the right way letting him resign before he was fired paying him off it's only for a month that's still letting him do a deal I don't know it's now seven years later and with hindsight do something different but at the time that seemed like the right thing to do to make sure that this whole thing got closed down as fast as we could possibly do it was this the first time you ever heard of exploitive sexual behavior going on at Oxfam no no no no because that's we know I can only think of one or
two you know that would come to mind but batshit basically we had already agreed that any sign that anybody was doing this and there would be an investigation that investigation was noted and went to our trustee board once a quarter so they know from from 2011 but before that before that you knew that there was yes actually exploits exhortation is going on and it was going on or what's going on a consolations going on was going on we knew in a lot of places with our staff with with some auxin staff who had been investigated
over over I was there twelve years I can think of probably one actually formally that you that I know of that absolutely was dismissed wouldn't it have been so simple to send out a really clear signal by getting your country director fired and investigated by police instead of allowing him to do a deal that might allow for more cases to come well we took legal advice in Haiti and it was made quite clear that the police would not be interested in this thank you very much thank you
