CHIEF TEDROS APOLOGIZES TO SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS OF WHO EMPLOYEES IN DRC

Tue 28 September 2021:

The General Director of the World Health Organization on Tuesday apologized to the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse at the hands of four of WHO employees who responded to the 10th Ebola virus outbreak in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“To the victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse described in the commission’s report.

I am sorry, I am sorry for what was done to you by people employed by the WHO to serve and protect you,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

The remarks were made during a press conference on the findings of a report of the independent commission on the review of the allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation

The 35-page report paints a grim picture, pointing to “the scale of incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse in the response to the 10th Ebola outbreak, all of which contributed to increasing the vulnerability of ‘alleged victims’ who were not provided the necessary information. support and assistance necessary for such degrading experiences ”.

”Based on the information that we have the organization will ban the identified perpetrators from future employment with WHO and we will notify the broader UN system,” Tedros added.

“I’m sorry for the ongoing suffering that these events must cause.

I’m sorry that you have had to relive them in talking to the commission about your experiences.

Thank you for your courage in doing so”-@DrTedros https://t.co/CbCTLWbiHi

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) September 28, 2021

WHO Africa Chief Matshidiso Moeti said: “As WHO leadership, we apologize to these people, to women and girls.”

The special commission cited “individual negligence that may amount to professional misconduct” in the report.

It also said it found “clear structural flaws and a lack of preparedness to handle the risks of incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse” in the poor central African country.

And the investigators highlighted a “perception of impunity of the institution’s personnel on the part of the alleged victims.”

Earlier in May 2021, a report by The New humanitarian (TNH) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation said, a total of seven organizations are implicated in the alleged misconduct of their employees, including two other UN agencies: WHO, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the medical charity Alima, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the International Medical Corps (IMC), and the DRC Ministry of Health.

Last year, a similar investigation by the same agency in the nearby town of Beni reported 51 Congolese women who said they had been sexually exploited by employees of UN agencies and major NGOs involved in the fight against the same Ebola outbreak.

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