VSO’s submission to the International Development Select Committee enquiry on sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector: next steps

Introduction

VSO is an international development agency with over 60 years’ experience of addressing poverty and marginalisation through our unique approach of working through international, national and community volunteers. By bringing together different perspectives, and working at all levels of society – from communities to government ministries – volunteers can build trust and provide the right support to ensure that national development efforts deliver lasting change. VSO has a particular focus on social inclusion, social accountability and resilience, seeing the absence of these as fundamental causes of marginalisation and vulnerability.

VSO leads a consortium of NGO partners to deliver the UK Government-funded International Citizen Service (ICS) programme, which has over the last ten years brought together over 40,000 young people from the UK and countries in the Global South to work alongside each other to deliver national development programmes in education, livelihoods and health.  VSO has an organisation-wide commitment to take seriously and act on all breaches in safeguarding.[1] We take a zero-tolerance view[2] of behaviour which harms, threatens, abuses or exploits the vulnerable, and a survivor-led approach to responding to incidents. We believe these commitments are an integral part of successfully delivering our charitable mission.  

VSO is a member of Bond and is co-chairing the Employment Cycle working group on safeguarding.
 

Summary of key recommendations
 

         Tackling sexual abuse and exploitation involves leadership, culture change and a shift in mindsets of individuals within organisations as well as changes to systems and processes. Organisations need to create enabling environments for victims to feel they can come forward with disclosures, and trust that reports will be dealt with fairly, sensitively and with consequences for perpetrators. The new FCDO should support longer-term capacity-building for organisations in this regard, including providing support and guidance for partner organisations.
 

         The new FCDO should build on the work done to date and maintain the structures of the DFID Safeguarding Policy Unit within the new Department. It should provide resources to work alongside those in programme development and those managing risk, and to support accompanying mindset shifts across the wider dispersed team of former DFID and FCO colleagues within the new Department.
 

         With the creation of the FCDO and the proposed greater alignment between UK aid and foreign policy, this should be an opportunity for the UK to use its increased influence to push for greater alignment between different safeguarding standards within the aid and development sector globally, as this issue will now fall under the wider remit of UK foreign policy. We would urge the new Department to make this a priority.
 

         The government should also push for legislation to be passed akin to the International Development (Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups) Bill, a Ten-Minute Rule Bill tabled by Stephen Twigg MP in the previous Parliament.

 

Response to questions
 

What mechanisms are in place to enable victims and survivors to report instances of sexual exploitation and abuse at the hands of the UN, other multilateral aid organisations, development aid NGOs, charities and the private sector (aid actors)?

How do aid actors guarantee that when abuse is reported, it is dealt with sensitively and objectively, and appropriate action is taken against the perpetrator if the complaint is upheld?

There are a number of mechanisms which exist across the sector to ensure that victims and survivors are able to report on instances of sexual abuse. They tend to be donor and project specific, which does not mean it is always straightforward for a recipient of aid or a primary actor to report effectively. For example, a poster may exist which asks someone to report to a particular donor if incidents occur, but recipients of aid do not always know who the donor is, and there may be multiple projects running in any one location. There may also be significant peer pressure not report through fears that the “aid” may cease.

At VSO, we have set definitions of abuse and inappropriate behaviour in place, and each project team is trained so that where harm does occur, our incident management framework enables us to manage incidents of all levels in a timely manner, with care and professionalism, ensuring a survivor-centred approach at all times. Our incident management framework has been developed in order to generate a safe and secure environment for all and to assist us in taking action, from incidents of verbal harassment or inappropriate touching, to more serious incidents which need to be dealt with.

How do victims and survivors access the psychological support and legal advice they need?
 

VSO developed a 'Responding to Sexual Violence Toolkit' toolkit in 2016, which has been shared widely across the sector and with external partners – for example the Global Integrated Security Forum, an NGO-led global security forum, used the toolkit as the basis for their guidance document[3]. Our toolkit guides our survivor-centred approach and supports first responders, country office staff and subject matter experts to ensure that survivors are believed and treated with dignity. This is a practical guide reflecting the scenarios a respondent might find themselves in, and includes ensuring that appropriate medical and psychological care are made available as soon as possible, information on offering support and advice on legal and justice processes, and emphasises the need to respect survivors’ confidentiality, rights, privacy, needs and wishes at all times.  
 

Are victims and survivors more likely to come forward now than they were before the issue re-gained prominence in 2018? 

There is some evidence[4] that there has been an increase in reporting of sexual abuse and harassment, including from within DFID and in the figures published by the UK Charity Regulator. There has been a range of societal incentives for victims and survivors to come forward, and a degree of social protection through both the volume of, and the increasingly high-profile nature of, legal action. All of this combined has influenced change.

We see the processes and culture change around safeguarding being implemented as a result of the issue re-gaining prominence in 2018 as part of a longer process of systemic change within the aid and development sector, which could take several years to embed. The dispersed nature of the work done by NGOs, and their fragmented organisational structures, contribute to the need for sustained change across a diverse variety of organisations to ensure the highest levels of safeguarding across the sector.

We would expect to see the change in the number of incidences reported, and the timeframe for these changes, to reflect all of this.
 

What action should the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office take to improve reporting mechanisms, strengthen independent investigations and oversight, support victims and survivors and provide access to justice?

In order to truly tackle this issue, a change in mindset and culture within organisations is needed, including a commitment from boards, executives and donors to talk without fear about how they are dealing as organisations with reports and incidents of sexual abuse. Survivors of abuse and exploitation need psycho-social support both during and after they report incidences of sexual abuse. They need to trust the overall system, trust that there will be a response to their disclosures and trust that the process of reporting will not mean further traumatisation.

We know from experience that victims of abuse and exploitation often need time to tell their whole stories, and that they will only feel comfortable doing so in environments where they are able to have ongoing conversations with individuals who are responsible for safeguarding and reporting incidents. For example, within our youth programming through the International Citizen Service (ICS), there is evidence that the systems in place have been visible and responsive to reports of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH), and we consider that this has been due to the building of trust and forging of strong relationship with those who manage the mechanisms to report SEAH. In terms of disclosures, there is still often a time line which reflects the need from individuals to be in a new or perceived safer space before they can report, or when a further incident, media article or training triggers a buried memory. This is to be expected.

It is therefore vital that the new FCDO supports longer-term capacity building with guidance and assistance provided to local partner organisations, so that they are able to implement the survivor-centred support systems for victims to come forward with disclosures, and to provide the necessary psycho-social support in the wake of incidents. This needs to be an ongoing conversation between the FCDO, agency implementing teams, staff in partner organisations and aid beneficiaries, and the Department should push strongly for such systems to be created and implemented within any organisation which receives UK aid funds.

In addition, encouraging a safe space for reporting how discussions and training may have generated disclosures could be a systematic element of programme reporting. Sitting alongside incident reporting through the specific risk and regulatory channels, this would also encourage the culture change which is a fundamental part of people- based development work.
 

What is your assessment of policies enabling reporting and speaking up across the sector? Are you confident that those wishing to report sexual exploitation and abuse are empowered to speak out?

The most important factor in victims being able to report sexual exploitation and to speak out about abuse is ensuring that there is an enabling environment for this to happen.

Although many organisations have clear policies and processes in place to report and deal with incidences, in many places processes to report incidences are only available by email or telephone, which may not be accessible to victims without phone or internet access, or whose phone and internet usage is monitored. Information on how to report also needs to be translated into local languages. Victims should know who they can report abuse to, and feel the person is somebody they are comfortable approaching, and whose response they know will be sensitive, culturally appropriate and survivor-centred.
 

Provision for local community support and security remains partial, and it is vital that more work is done to strengthen how law enforcement agencies respond to reports in different country contexts. It is also necessary to assist individuals on how to protect their income, home and other relationships in the face of potential repercussions in the wake of disclosures.

How well are reports of abuse acted on? Are they dealt with promptly, impartially and fairly through robust investigation and disciplinary processes?

Much donor work with agencies is during the due diligence stage, to establish that safeguarding procedures are in place as a condition of funding, and to reinforce the protocols which have to be in place which mean that incidents must be reported within a certain timeframe. In our experience this can be clear at a very senior level, or in one part of the organisation, but not as clear at an operational level, for example with downstream partner employees, volunteers, or employees working in a smaller part of a project team. Due to the level of scrutiny there can often remain an internal organisational and donor focus on the nature of the incident and on issues of reputation management, instead of a more survivor-centred and learning approach. This can be exacerbated in the complex consortium and partner arrangements that are the basis of the majority of funding arrangements.
 

What measures, legal and otherwise, have been taken since 2018 to actively support whistleblowers who disclose sexual exploitation and abuse?

While UK legislation provides protection to whistle-blowers, this is not a globally held position, and so whilst the nature of aid and development work is no longer wholly based on UK contracts, protection with regard to future employment is hard to provide.

We fully support the role of whistleblowers in bringing abuses to light, and regret that this is still necessary. We are also clear that whistle-blowing is often a sign that other systems and processes in place to tackle abuse and exploitation are not working effectively. Whistle-blowing is often a last resort for those who experience or witness abuse, and should not be relied upon as a primary mechanism for bringing incidences to light.
 

What are the repercussions for organisations that are in receipt of UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) and are found to have insufficient policies and practices in place to detect, prevent, and tackle abuse when it arises?

While no society or organisation is immune to the challenges that exist around issues of power, sexual exploitation, harassment and abuse, due to the contexts in which we are working and the vulnerability of those we are working with and for, INGOs are rightly held to a higher standard than other institutions. Those who are most affected by safeguarding failures are of course the primary actors (beneficiaries) and staff who experience sexual abuse and harassment, which can be extremely traumatising and go on to affect them in numerous ways throughout their lives.

In terms of organisations, the primary repercussions for those who have been found to have insufficient policies in place to detect, prevent and tackle abuse when it arises are reputational, often resulting in a loss of institutional funding, or a reduction in income from members of the public. As ODA-funded programmes of work tend to be comprehensive and of a high quality, the greatest impact of this is on primary actors in developing countries who rely on UK aid programming, in some cases for their basic needs, and who may have their access to these programmes rescinded when organisations lose the funding needed to provide them.

Many NGOs are committed to improving their own systems and many have implemented systematic and robust safeguarding measures. A reduction in funding can impact on the ability of NGOs to maintain the professional staff needed to sustainably implement the systems which need to be put in place to improve safeguarding policies and processes within their own organisations and in their work with other agencies.
 

What is your view of the employment-cycle initiatives for tackling sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH); the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, Project Soteria and the Aid Worker Identification Scheme? Do you think this is the most effective way of tackling SEAH?

We support these employment-cycle initiatives for tackling sexual exploitation, including the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, an Aid Worker Identification Scheme and the work of Project Soteria.

However, we also recognise that a global aid worker identification scheme is a huge undertaking, and necessarily involves a series of challenges around the holding and sharing of data in many differing legal environments. The use of block chain technology to store data still requires a global body or committee to determine what data individuals would be obliged to share with organisations, as well as alignment from donors on the obligations which exist to request this data. For this reason, we would recommend this kind of data is held by a committee of representatives and not a single body.
 

What tangible actions have aid actors taken since 2018 to address the workplace culture that had enabled abuse to persist?

It is critical that aid and development organisations lead from the top when it comes to safeguarding issues. At VSO, our Chief Executive has made it clear that safeguarding should be at the heart of everything we do, and this is regularly reinforced through all- staff communications. We also have a dedicated trustee lead on duty of care, and have expanded our safeguarding team in recent years.

Over the last two years, UK based agencies and private sector contractors involved in aid and development have delivered change in the way organisations safeguard people they come into contact with, whether this is the communities we serve or our own staff. Within organisations we have made commitments to changing safeguarding practices, hired new staff and implemented new training, and collectively we have worked together to drive change, through organisations like BOND, or supporting suppliers like CIGNA and Humentum to promote and advocate for improved practice.

Since the DFID Safeguarding Unit was established in February 2018, vital progress has been made across the aid sector in all areas of safeguarding: organisations have updated their policies and improved their processes to respond to incidents, make it easier for victims and survivors to raise concerns, and this has built trust that incidents are dealt with promptly and thoroughly when they occur.

As a result of this work, we have already seen an increase in the number of safeguarding reports organisations receive and we expect this increase to continue in the medium-term, as organisations continue to improve their processes. Organisations across the sector have also adapted their recruitment practices to keep perpetrators out of the sector and to stop them from moving between organisations, with the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme already having prevented the recruitment of thirty-four individuals in the aid sector as a result of improved reference checks. Boards of trustees and senior leadership teams have built a better understanding of the importance of safeguarding cultures and their responsibility in ensuring their organisations are safe places to be.  
 

We see the DFID Safeguarding Unit as providing essential coordination and oversight for this work, particularly as it is able to liaise with other multi-lateral donors, and the range of organisations implementing development work, drawing the relevant actors together to ensure a coordinated, UK sector-wide approach to finding solutions. 

 

Are there still challenges that need to be addressed for culture change to occur?

We are clear that sexual abuse and exploitation is completely wrong under any circumstances, and that the issue is part of a wider power injustice in the world which organisations like VSO exist to tackle. While organisations have worked to improve their safeguarding practices and their internal cultures around abuse and exploitation, there is still work to do. There is a challenge in recognising the diversity of the sector and its work, and in creating and implementing a code of conduct appropriate for everyone involved in it.

Many of these initiatives, which NGOs have identified as vital to ensure those most in need are protected from any harm, both within our programmes and across our organisations, are just taking root. For example, the new DFID Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub was launched in May 2020 after two years of planning and consultations, and the INTERPOL pilot project SOTERIA, which aims to improve international background checks was launched in November 2019. A legal review into the possibility of an Aid Worker Registration Scheme was published in June 2020 and is currently under consultation. A Leadership Tool to improve safeguarding culture in organisations has been developed and is imminently going to be produced in a more accessible, online format.    

Despite all this, safeguarding and the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment remain a complex challenge for many organisations, who often work in emergencies or fragile contexts, supporting the poorest and most marginalised. Sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment are fundamentally about power imbalances and inequalities, and long-term commitment and culture change is needed to ensure systemic, lasting change in the sector. 

We know that further work is needed, especially on supporting victims and survivors. We need to listen to people who are usually not given a voice to better understand the context of their lives and, together, find ways to prevent exploitation, abuse and harassment, and safely respond when it does happen. We also need to ensure everyone in the sector, including our partners in country, meets the same high standards of safeguarding practice, and to improve that practice through building on global expertise. Lastly, we must ensure continued commitments from leadership and boards to embed culture change. 

Would you recommend any changes to the relevant standards and certification schemes in the sector, such as the Core Humanitarian Standard, Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative, UN Minimum Operating Standards and Keeping Children Safe, to ensure that organisations maintain adequate safeguarding procedures?

Our primary recommendation is that safeguarding standards should be uniform across all of these schemes to ensure all individuals and organisations are held to the same standard regarding incidents of SEAH. So far, we do not think there has been sufficient action to co-ordinate this across different organisations. However, with the forthcoming merger between DFID and the FCO to create the FCDO, we see scope for the new department to use its increased influence to push for greater alignment between different standards, as the issue of safeguarding within the aid sector will now fall under the wider remit of UK foreign policy. We would urge the new Department to make this a priority.

VSO recently launched a new set of Global Volunteering for Development Standards[5] a tool to support volunteer-involving organisations to ensure that their work is responsible, impactful and safe across a range of metrics, including safeguarding. This includes sections on duty of care, and we are currently working with partners across the world to further refine and test these standards to improve practice across the volunteering sector, particularly amongst organisations in the Global South. We believe this kind of model can work to set standards across the sector, provide a level of standardisation and provide the necessary support and guidance for organisations to reach that level.

What are the opportunities for improvement under the new FCDO which will bring the Safeguarding Unit, existing initiatives to tackle SEAH, and the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict (PSVI) programme under the same department and Secretary of State?

The new FCDO should maintain the existing DFID Safeguarding Unit within the structures of the new department, to ensure its work continues to be built on and that it can provide additional support to relevant organisations.
 

The new Department should also push for legislation akin to the International Development (Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups) Bill, a Ten Minute Rule Bill tabled by Stephen Twigg in the previous Parliament which was designed to give greater protection to children and vulnerable adults during development assistance and disaster relief. This Bill would extend the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 to introduce background checks on aid workers that would be equal to those faced by teachers and social workers, amounting to a version of a “global DBS check” for aid workers.

We also strongly urge the new Department to continue its support of Project Soteria.  An extension is the best way to ensure the FCDO builds on the Project’s previous work to improve on the issue of ensuring comprehensive criminal records checks on anyone working in the aid and humanitarian sector. The work required to raise quality standards and change mind-sets across law enforcement agencies across a range of countries remains extensive.