Non-governmental Organisations: Sexual Offences

(asked on 30th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Government has taken since (a) 2018 and (b) 31 December 2019 to tackle sexual abuse by aid workers.


Answered by
James Cleverly Portrait
James Cleverly
Home Secretary
This question was answered on 8th October 2020

Sexual exploitation and abuse are completely abhorrent. Since 2018, the Government has taken action to prevent abuse by aid workers and to improve the response when it happens. We introduced enhanced safeguarding standards and regularly assess partners against them. We created Project Soteria with Interpol to strengthen vetting of aid workers and information sharing among law enforcement agencies. We champion the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme which prevented 36 individuals from being offered aid sector jobs in 2019. We created the Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub which provides resources for all aid organisations. In October 2019 we published reports summarising work over the previous 12 months including these and many other measures.

In 2020 as well as continuing with the work above, the UK and 14 other donors agreed common language on safeguarding for funding agreements with multilaterals, aligned with international standards. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is finalising a programme to support victims and survivors. We regularly convene the groups who signed commitments at the October 2018 London Safeguarding Summit and will publish a further annual progress report this month. Last month the Government published a safeguarding strategy covering all UK aid spend which builds on commitments made at the 2018 Summit.

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