I am writing this blog post with deep anger and confusion following the scandal of OXFAM and other organizations working in the aid industry, because a ”sector” is no longer viable for this type of ”business, where OXFAM employees were found to sexually exploit underage girls in Haiti and Africa and the UN being accused of covering up employees’ extortion of Syrian girls in refugee camps in return of giving aid to these young girls/families.
I would understand, but certainly not forgive or accept, if there was one person responsible for such horrific crimes, but the dangerous problem is that in this case institutions and organizations are involved and rightly accused of these crimes. Organizations did chose to cover up crimes like this, knowingly. The choice is made to protect ”talented aid workers” and after all, aid organizations only care about their image before their donors, and the public. After all, they are created to take money and help people in wars, famine and dangers to humanity, but countering a danger to humanity by another danger to human dignity is not the positive solution.
Nowadays, the most important thing is not how organizations believe in the cause and serve the people/victims, the most important thing is to appear loving and peace/democracy promoting. By mentioning and agreeing to this trend since the inception of the UN system, it has become standard practice in the development and aid industry to hire criminals if they are talented and contribute to the organization’s growth. This is done by hiring talented criminals to work on women issues from 9 to 5 and sexually exploit women afterwork is not a major concern according to leadership of these organizations.
What will young activists feel and think ? Shouldn’t they be inspired by the actions of more experienced ”expats” to make a positive impact on their communities ? Is the development and aid sector transforming into a mafia system ?
Now, the development sector, including stakeholders like schools and universities, is producing soulless managers and not activists. Managers just do whatever it takes to get more funds and grow organizations, activists are the ones who CARE and are the ones who will make an impact. There is also the surge of militia NGOs, that are organizations existing to work on many causes as long as the funding is there, these ”chameleon organizations” are sneaky and dangerous.
Dear friends and colleagues, I am telling you this from a personal experience, please hire young and inexperienced people that have a soul and a motivation to achieve an impact for a cause they deeply care about and DO NOT hire talented people because they know the system and can grow the organization faster. Always remember that fast is not good when we are activists, steady and pace-full is the best way to do things.