The Associated Press obtained internal documents from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), it claimed on Wednesday, that showed the agency was offering a paltry $250 compensation to women sexually abused by its employees in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
To avoid the money appearing to be “reparations” for criminal behavior, the report revealed, the women were forced into career “training.” Women forced into sexual relations with W.H.O. workers in exchange for jobs during the Ebola outbreak in the country that began in 2018 told the AP that the United Nations agency did offer the $250, but only if they took baking classes.
The W.H.O., like many U.N. agencies, is struggling to address rampant rape and sexual assault by its workers in some of the world’s most impoverished areas. Following the revelation of at least dozens of cases of women and girls forced into sex by W.H.O. employees in Congo, the agency’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus promised a “profound transformation” in 2021. Tedros had already faced over a year of widespread criticism for his poor handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, including a failure to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for the pandemic and telling the public that the Wuhan coronavirus was not contagious weeks after documented evidence existed that it could, indeed, spread from human to human.
Publicly available information on the abuse indicates that most took place when the W.H.O. expanded operations in Congo to address the Ebola outbreak that erupted there from 2018 to 2020. The operation created job opportunities for local health workers and others. Over 100 women have claimed, however, that to obtain the jobs – which they often desperately needed given the widespread poverty in the country – W.H.O. employees demanded sexual favors, raped them, or fired them. Several of the women claim they were impregnated and left to care for the resulting children on their own.
The original allegations surfaced in 2020 in a report co-authored by the news agencies Reuters and The New Humanitarian.
“Women said they were plied with drinks, others ambushed in offices and hospitals, and some locked in rooms by men who promised jobs or threatened to fire them if they did not comply,” the report alleged.
In March, the New Humanitarian updated its reporting with a report revealing that “dozens more women have come forward” to accuse the W.H.O.
It identified 34 new allegations surfacing between its original 2020 report and March, at least four of which involved the rape of girls by W.H.O. officials.
“My life became so bleak. This was my first time to be with a man like this, in this case, an old man. I felt awful,” one of the women told the outlet.
In October, the director of the W.H.O. office for the Prevention and Response to Sexual Misconduct (PRS), Gaya Gamhewage, published a report on the situation in Congo, acknowledging a dramatic increase in the number of women and girls alleging sexual abuse by its workers.
Gamhewage traveled to D.R. Congo in March to meet with the alleged victims. The internal document the Associated Press claims to have obtained details her trip.
“To help victims like her, the WHO has paid $250 each to at least 104 women in Congo who say they were sexually abused or exploited by officials working to stop Ebola,” the AP relayed from the documents. “The payments to women didn’t come freely. To receive the cash, they were required to complete training courses intended to help them start ‘income-generating activities.’”
Two women confirmed to the news agency that they had taken baking classes to receive their sexual abuse damages. One woman lamented the “really insufficient” $250 she received after classes in baking and tailoring, but noted she needed the money as she had a five-year-old – the daughter of a W.H.O. rapist – to feed on her own.
The agency’s requirement that, to receive damages for being forced into sexual relations to keep their jobs, the victims must take “training courses” appeared to be an attempt to “circumvent the U.N.’s stated policy that it doesn’t pay reparations by including the money in what it calls a ‘complete package’ of support,” according to the AP.
By classifying the money as “support,” the agency also appears to exonerate its abusive employees, as the money is not defined as an acknowledgment of sexual crimes but, rather, amorphous “support” for disenfranchised Congolese women. The AP described the money as part of a larger “victim support package” and justified the meager amount of damages offers as necessary “in order to not expose reicipents to further harm” in their communities.
Gamhewage herself admitted to the Associated Press, “obviously, we haven’t done enough.”
Tedros has not addressed the Associated Press report at press time, focusing on condemning the government of Israel for its ongoing defensive operation against the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas.
Reports of military incursion into Al-Shifa hospital are deeply concerning.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 15, 2023
We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital.
We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.
The United Nations aids Hamas through its U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, whose employees reportedly celebrated the October 7 massacre of over 1,200 people in Israel and for years have stood accused of indoctrinating Palesitnian children into antisemitism and jihad.
In 2021, Tedros promised that the Reuters and New Humanitarian report on rape in D.R. Congo would “be the catalyst for a profound transformation of W.H.O.’s culture.” The agency itself at the time promised that “children born as a result of these cases will also be supported, through educational grants and the covering of medical fees.”
