Select Committee on International Development

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

Abusers are getting off the hook because aid organisations have put prosecuting them into the “too difficult” box, either because it happened overseas, or because it involved locally employed subcontractors. It is not too difficult, and we owe it to the survivors to do that. We can use the existing sex tourism Act, and we can work to support local justice systems to ensure that prosecutions take place. The Committee heard that sexual abusers are actively trying to get into the aid sector because they know that they can get away with the abuse there. We have to stamp it out.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP) [V]]

I thank the Chair and the Committee for an extremely important report on this difficult and poignant area. Some of the individuals most vulnerable to sexual exploitation are people with disabilities. Will the Chair comment on what more can be done to ensure that people with disabilities in the aid sector have the support they need to know their rights, communicate their experiences, and navigate any criminal justice system?

[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The inquiry found that there is so much discrimination, and the power imbalances that exist are not being challenged by the aid organisations. We found that there was very little effort to engage local populations in developing programmes or safeguarding routes. Methods to enable beneficiaries to report abuse tended to be in written form, or someone would telephone in. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one organisation had 22 different reporting mechanisms, and not one of them got used. Unless we build things in partnership with local people, and ask them what is the best way forward, whatever clever systems we put in place will not engage the local population and they will fail. We need aid organisations to be much more proactive about engaging with everybody who they are meant to be serving.