Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Penny Mordaunt: 'They did absolutely the wrong thing'

Ministers could cut off funding for Oxfam if it cannot account for the way it handled claims of sexual misconduct by aid workers, the international development secretary has warned.

Penny Mordaunt will meet the charity on Monday to hear more about claims staff used prostitutes in Haiti in 2011.

She said Oxfam had failed in its "moral leadership" over the "scandal".

Meanwhile, Oxfam has announced new measures for the prevention and handling of sexual abuse cases.

Ms Mordaunt told the BBC's Andrew Marr she had written to other organisations funded by Department for International Development (DfID) urging them to report any safeguarding issues, past or present, and pledged they would all be followed up.

Oxfam has faced growing criticism for the way it handled the allegations of misconduct by its staff in Haiti, where they were working in the aftermath of the huge earthquake that devastated they country in 2010.

The charity's own investigation into the allegations led to four people being sacked and three others resigning - among them its country director, Roland van Hauwermeiren.

Ms Mordaunt said the allegations were "a complete betrayal of both the people Oxfam were there to help and also the people that sent them there to do that job".

She said Oxfam did "absolutely the wrong thing" by not reporting the detail of the allegations and that no organisation could be a government partner if it did not "have the moral leadership to do the right thing".

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She said she was considering whether Oxfam should receive any more funding from the government - which gave it £32m ($44m) in the last financial year.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Oxfam staff had been in Haiti as part of the relief effort following the 2010 earthquake

Oxfam's chairman of trustees, Caroline Thomson, said the reports in the Times newspaper had led to other staff coming forward with concerns about how employees were recruited and vetted.

She said the charity's board had appointed a consultant earlier this year to review its culture and working practices, which would now be extended.

"If that review brings about a safer environment for all, then the publicity of the last few days, painful as it has been, will also have been valuable," she said.

"It is not sufficient to be appalled by the behaviour of our former staff - we must and will learn from it and use it as a spur to improvement."

The charity will also introduce tougher vetting of staff and mandatory safeguarding training for new recruits and work with the rest of the aid sector to make it easier to share intelligence about people who have been found guilty of sexual misconduct.

This will be in addition to measures designed to prevent sexual abuse and misconduct and improve the handling of allegations which Oxfam says it introduced in the wake of the Haiti case in 2011.

Fresh claims

Meanwhile, Oxfam is facing further allegations, reported in the Observer, that staff on its mission in Chad - also led by Mr van Hauwermeiren - used prostitutes in 2006.

Oxfam said it could not corroborate the latest claims.

The Sunday Times has also reported new allegations, saying more than 120 workers from UK charities were accused of sexual abuse in the past year.

Ms Mordaunt's predecessor Priti Patel said she was aware of a wider issue of sexual abuse and child exploitation from when she was at DfID.

She told Radio 5 live's Pienaar's Politics there was "a culture of denial in the aid sector about the exploitation and sexual abuse that has taken place historically for decades" and called for a database for "predatory paedophiles" who she claimed could be infiltrating the organisations.

Ms Mordaunt said she suspected there were paedophiles targeting the sector to carry out predatory activities, making it important that aid organisations reported offences.

What happened when?

The allegations of misconduct by Oxfam staff in Haiti date from 2011 but came to light in a report in the Times on Friday, which said the charity's country director for Haiti, Roland Van Hauwermeiren, was alleged to have used prostitutes at a villa rented for him by Oxfam in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

Oxfam knew about the allegations at the time and launched an internal investigation, as a result of which four members of staff were dismissed.

Three others, including Mr Van Hauwermeiren, were allowed to resign before the end of the investigation.

Mr Van Hauwermeiren went on to work elsewhere in the sector, but Oxfam said it would not have provided a positive reference.

The charity says it made a report public at the time which said "serious misconduct" had taken place in Haiti and issued a press release - but did not give details of the allegations.

It told the Charity Commission it was investigating inappropriate sexual behaviour, bullying, harassment and staff intimidation but did again not reveal the exact details.

The regulator took no further action at the time, but has since said it would have acted differently had it known all the facts.

Oxfam has denied any cover-up.

Its chief executive, Mark Goldring, told the BBC that describing details of the behaviour at the time could have drawn "extreme attention" to it, which he said would have been in no-one's best interest.</s>International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt will meet the charity’s bosses today following the outcry about sexual misconduct by staff. The scandal engulfing the aid sector deepened yesterday when it emerged that more than 120 workers from British overseas assistance charities were accused of sexual abuse over the past year. Oxfam has been plunged into crisis following revelations that its aid workers used prostitutes in Haiti. Ms Mordaunt yesterday accused the charity of an “absolute absence of leadership” and confirmed she was considering ending its Government hand-outs. She told the BBC One Andrew Marr Show: “If they do not hand over all the information that they have from their investigation and subsequently to the relevant authorities, including the Charity Commission and prosecuting authorities, then I cannot work with them anymore as an aid delivery partner.”

Ms Mordaunt said she would tell Oxfam chiefs: “If the moral leadership at the top of the organisation is not there then we cannot have you as a partner.” Ms Mordaunt said the charity had also “categorically” stated to the Department for International Development that no harm was done and beneficiaries were not involved. She added that Oxfam had done “absolutely the wrong thing” by failing to inform authorities about the full details of the allegations. Four members of Oxfam staff were dismissed and three, including the country director in Haiti, resigned before the end of the 2011 investigation.

The charity said allegations that under-age girls may have been involved were not proven. Roland van Hauwermeiren, embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal in Haiti, resigned from Oxfam in 2011 after admitting that prostitutes visited his villa there. He had previously been head of Oxfam in Chad where there were allegations of sex parties taking place among aid workers there in 2006 although there is no suggestion Mr van Hauwermeiren was involved. Former international secretary Priti Patel yesterday said there was a “culture of denial” in the aid sector. She told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “There has been, in my view, not just a cover-up with Oxfam there is a denial, a culture of denial in the aid sector about the exploitation and sexual abuse that has taken place historically for decades.” Charity Commission chiefs have written to Oxfam to request further information about the scandal.

The Charity Commission said in a statement: “Our approach to this matter would have been different had the full details that have been reported been disclosed to us at the time.” Caroline Thomson, Oxfam’s chairwoman of trustees in the UK, yesterday said the charity was “ashamed” of what had happened in Haiti. She said she was working with chief executive Mark Goldring to make improvements. “We will continue to address the underlying cultural issues that allowed this behaviour to happen,” she said. "We also want to satisfy ourselves that we do now have a culture of openness and that we fully learn the lessons of events in 2011.”</s>LONDON — Oxfam’s deputy chief executive resigned Monday, saying she took “full responsibility” for failing to act immediately in the sexual misconduct scandal involving the charity’s workers in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.

Penny Lawrence, Oxfam program director at the time, said she was “ashamed that this happened on my watch.”

Still, it’s unclear whether the resignation will quell the scandal, which first emerged when the Times of London reported last week that seven former Oxfam staff members who worked in Haiti faced misconduct allegations that included using prostitutes and downloading pornography.

Oxfam says it investigated the allegations in 2011 and then fired four people and let three others resign after uncovering sexual misconduct, bullying, intimidation and failure to protect staff.

Lawrence on Monday said the allegations of sexual misconduct were first raised about some Oxfam staff in an earlier mission in Chad.

“It is now clear that these allegations — involving the use of prostitutes and which related to behaviour of both the country director and members of his team in Chad — were raised before he moved to Haiti,” she said in a statement.

Oxfam has apologized unreservedly for the incidents in Haiti but has denied that it attempted to cover up the scandal.

Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt is demanding that Oxfam show moral accountability and provide full disclosure about the case. On Sunday she threatened to pull public funding from Oxfam unless the charity reveals everything it knows about the Haiti allegations.

On Monday, the European Commission demanded that Oxfam offer maximum transparency in responding to the allegations.

“We are ready to review and, if needed, cease funding to any partner who is not living up to the required high ethical standards,” European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told reporters.

In 2011, the European Union’s relief agency, ECHO, gave Oxfam UK 1.7 million euros for Haitian operations.

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this story.</s>In 2011 some members of Oxfam Great Britain staff in Haiti acted in a way that was totally unacceptable and is the most appalling mark against the high values we set ourselves at Oxfam. On the recent allegations of sexual misconduct in 2006 in Chad, Oxfam is shocked and dismayed. While Oxfam Great Britain cannot corroborate the information on Chad at the moment it highlights again unacceptable behaviour by a small number of people and the need for a sector-wide approach to tackle the problem.

Oxfam's priority is to stand fully by the survivors of such reprehensible behavior - and to ensure that such behavior is absolutely rooted out of our organisation. We stand firmly against the exploitation and abuse of women and girls.

In Haiti, as soon as Oxfam Great Britain became aware of the allegations Oxfam immediately launched an internal investigation.

Oxfam’s primary aim was always to formally investigate and take action against those involved and we publicly announced, including to media, both the investigation and the action we took as a result. Four members of Oxfam Great Britain staff were dismissed as a result of the investigation and three, including the country director, resigned before the end of the investigation. Allegations that underage girls may have been involved were not proven. Oxfam Great Britain has not and would not provide a positive reference for any of those that were dismissed or resigned as a result of the case in Haiti. Unfortunately, there is nothing Oxfam can do to stop individuals falsifying references, or former or current Oxfam staff that worked with the individual providing a reference in a personal capacity.

That these events took place seven and twelve years ago respectively and involved a small number of Oxfam Great Britain staff is no cause for complacency for any Oxfam.

Globally, we in Oxfam, know we must do more to continue to change our own culture and to create the strongest possible policies to prevent harassment and protect people we work with around the world. We are doing that now with all our effort. Since the Haiti case in 2011 we have introduced a range of measures to prevent sexual abuse and misconduct happening in the first place and improve how we handle any allegations. We have a Global Taskforce on Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Exploitation & Abuse that is co-chaired by our Oxfam International Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. We want to use this opportunity to reiterate that our confidential global 'whistleblowing' line is available to all Oxfam staff and all the people we work with, wherever we work. We know the only way to change culture and make the safeguarding system work is to be open and transparent about it. We hope we can rebuild our trust with our supporters around the world who know, as we do, that the actions of a few do not represent all that Oxfam stands for.</s>The Latest on the sexual misconduct scandal involving the charity firm Oxfam (all times local):

Oxfam's deputy chief executive has resigned, saying she took "full responsibility" for failing to act immediately in the sexual misconduct scandal involving the charity's workers in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.

Penny Lawrence, Oxfam program director at the time of the misconduct, says she is "ashamed that this happened on my watch." Lawrence says allegations were first raised about the behavior of some Oxfam staff in an earlier mission.

She says "It is now clear that these allegations — involving the use of prostitutes and which related to behavior of both the country director and members of his team in Chad — were raised before he moved to Haiti."

Oxfam has apologized unreservedly about the conduct of seven of its employees but denied that it attempted to cover up the scandal.

Oxfam officials are set to meet with Britain's international development secretary in a bid to retain government funding amid a deepening scandal over sexual misconduct by the charity's workers in Haiti.

Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt is demanding that Oxfam show moral accountability and provide full disclosure about the case. On Sunday she threatened to pull public funding from Oxfam unless the charity reveals everything it knows about allegations that some of staff used prostitutes, some of whom were minors, while working in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country.

Oxfam has apologized unreservedly, but denied that it attempted to cover up the scandal.

Former International Development Secretary Priti Patel has said there is a "culture of denial" about exploitation and sexual abuse in the aid sector.</s>Oxfam lied and failed in its “moral leadership” in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct by aid workers, the International Development Secretary has said.

Penny Mordaunt condemned the behaviour of some Oxfam staff members as a “complete betrayal”, as she warned the charity the “scandal” had put its relationship with the government at risk.

Oxfam is facing mounting criticism over its handling of sex allegations, but has denied it tried to cover up the use of prostitutes by workers in Haiti in 2011.

Ms Mordaunt told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show that the failure to pass on information to relevant authorities shows an “absolute absence of leadership”.

Asked by Marr if she thought Oxfam had failed in its “moral leadership”, the Conservative MP replied: “Yes, I do.” Ms Mordaunt announced she would meet the charity today to discuss the case, and said: “If the moral leadership at the top of the organisation is not there then we cannot have you as a partner.”

Charities, including Oxfam, have been told they will have funding withdrawn if they fail to comply with authorities over safeguarding issues.

Former international secretary Priti Patel said there was a “culture of denial” about exploitation in the aid sector.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics she was not aware of allegations within Oxfam, but had raised the issue of abuse involving aid workers in disaster zones with the Department for International Development (DfID) while heading the department.

“There has been in my view, not just a cover-up with Oxfam, there is a denial, a culture of denial in the aid sector about the exploitation and sexual abuse that has taken place historically for decades,” she said.

The Charity Commission said on Saturday that it had written to Oxfam “as a matter of urgency” to request further information.

It said an Oxfam report on the investigation stated there had been no allegations of abuse of beneficiaries and made no mention of any potential sexual crimes involving minors.

“Our approach to this matter would have been different had the full details that have been reported been disclosed to us at the time,” the regulator said in a statement.

Ms Mordaunt said the charity had also “categorically” stated to the DfID that beneficiaries were not involved in the misconduct and no harm was done. Marr said: “That was a lie, wasn’t it?” Ms Mordaunt replied: “Well, quite.”</s>Oxfam faces having tens of millions of pounds worth of taxpayers’ cash withdrawn amid growing anger at sexual misconduct claims against its staff.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show the alleged cover up of aid workers’ use of prostitutes in Haiti was “shocking”.

She will meet the charity’s bosses to demand answers over the 2011 incidents.

She said Oxfam had failed in its “moral leadership” over the “scandal”.

And she warned: “If they don’t hand over all the information they have, then I can’t work with them any more.”

Oxfam got £32million from her department last year.

The Charity Commission said Oxfam told of a misconduct probe on inappropriate sexual behaviour - but not potential sex crimes involving minors.

Oxfam said such claims are unproven. It announced new measures for the prevention and handling of sexual abuse cases.

But it also emerged it did not tell agencies of accused staff taking new jobs. Haiti director Roland van Hauwermeiren quit after using sex workers, but then joined Action Against Hunger.

Oxfam said it has not given positive references for those sacked.

Ms Mordaunt said the allegations were “a complete betrayal of both the people Oxfam were there to help and also the people that sent them there to do that job”.

She said Oxfam did “absolutely the wrong thing” by not reporting the detail of the allegations and that no organisation could be a government partner if it did not “have the moral leadership to do the right thing”.

She said she was considering whether Oxfam should receive any more funding from the government.

Women believed to be prostitutes also visited the Oxfam team in Chad, Africa, in 2006, it has been claimed.

And 120 workers for British charities have been accused of sexual harassment in the last year.

It also emerged the husband of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, who worked for Save The Children, was once accused of groping a senior US government official.

Brendan Cox strongly denied the allegation, which was not pursued.

Meanwhile, Priti Patel said allegations against Oxfam staff are only the “tip of the iceberg” of a global aid scandal that she raised with officials when she was Development Secretary.

The ex-Cabinet minister, who resigned from her past last year, said she had flagged concerns about sex abuse in UN charities with officials at the Department for International Development.

While she had not been aware of any allegations against Oxfam during her time in DfID, she said sex abuse by charity staff was not a new problem.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “I spoke to people who have worked within the aid sector who have been whistleblowers. This is well documented, going back to the peace-keeping issues.

“Even the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, and the former secretary general, Kofi Annan, have all publicly spoken about this. The tragedy is there has been no international leadership about this.”

The backbench MP, who was forced to resign after it emerged she had taken unofficial meetings with Israeli diplomats and businessmen while on holiday, said Dfid officials were aware of allegations of widespread sexual abuse.

“People knew in Dfid. I raised this directly with my department at the time. I have UN reports...there are 120 cases involving something like over 300 people. That was just the tip of the iceberg.”

She blamed the lack of political will for the international community’s failure to deal with the problem.

“My former department did not raise this issue with me. I raised it with them through my own investigations and my own research.

"I challenged them - that is the job of ministers, to challenge your officials.”

Ms Patel said she had used data from UN reports on sex abuse in the charity sector and the Government had still gone ahead with funding.

“We, the British government made a series of recommendations to the UN and NGOs, in terms of steps we should take, including holding back funds, putting in performance agreements and criteria, looking for independent whistleblowing mechanisms, calling for prosecutions, calling for databases.

“There are no databases for these predatory paedophiles that exist. I think the UN should hold these databases and put them in the public domain so law enforcement agencies can see who is out there.”</s>LONDON — Sex predators are targeting aid organizations because of the chaotic environments in which they work, Britain’s top development official warned Sunday as she threatened to pull public funding from Oxfam unless it came clean about a sexual misconduct scandal in Haiti.

Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt excoriated the leadership of Oxfam for its handling of allegations that some of the anti-poverty charity’s staff in Haiti used prostitutes, including Haitians who might have been minors at the time.

Oxfam demonstrated a “failure of leadership” when it failed to fully inform authorities and because it didn’t prevent the alleged perpetrators from going to work for other charities, she said.

Mordaunt made clear that all aid agencies must show “moral leadership” in tackling sex abuse or risk losing their taxpayer funding.

“What is so disturbing about Oxfam is that when this was reported to them, they completely failed to do the right thing,” Mordaunt told the BBC on Sunday. “That’s what we need to focus on, and that’s what ultimately will stop predatory individuals from being able to take advantage of vulnerable people.”

Oxfam announced seven measures Sunday designed to strengthen its handling of sexual abuse allegations. The package includes improving the vetting of employees, creating an external complaint line for whistleblowers and working with other charities to overcome the “legal difficulties” that kept them from sharing information on sexual misconduct cases.

“We will continue to address the underlying cultural issues that allowed this behaviour to happen,” Caroline Thompson, the chair of Oxfam Great Britain’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “We also want to satisfy ourselves that we do now have a culture of openness and transparency and that we fully learn the lessons of events in 2011.”

The Times of London reported last week that seven former Oxfam staff members who worked in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country were the subject of misconduct allegations that included the use of prostitutes and downloading pornography. Oxfam’s investigation into the charges was hampered by a “determination to keep it out of the public eye,” the Times said.

The newspaper’s sister publication, the Sunday Times, said the problem goes beyond Oxfam. More than 120 people working for British charities were accused of sexual abuse in the past year, the newspaper reported, though it did not specify the exact dates or the source of the information.

Oxfam had 87 cases, the largest number of any charity, but the Times also mentioned Save the Children, the British Red Cross and Christian Aid.

In response, Save the Children said it investigated 31 cases of sexual harassment last year, which resulted in 16 people being fired and 10 being referred to police or other authorities. None of the cases involved children and all of them occurred abroad, the charity said.

The British Red Cross said it hasn’t dismissed staff members working overseas for sexual abuse, harassment or pedophilia in at least the past five years. There were a “small number” of sexual harassment cases last year in the U.K., and the Red Cross said that “appropriate was taken” in all cases, though it did not specify what the actions were.

Christian Aid said it investigated two sexual misconduct cases in the last 12 months, resulting in the dismissal of one worker and less severe disciplinary action in the other.

Oxfam has said it dismissed four people and allowed three others to resign after an internal 2011 investigation revealed that sexual misconduct, bullying, intimidation and a failure to protect staff hampered the charity’s Haiti operation. Allegations that staff members had sex with minors were “not proven,” it said.

The charity said it reported the findings to Britain’s charity regulator and to major donors, including the Department for International Development, the department Mordaunt heads. The department gave Oxfam 31.7 million pounds ($43.8 million) last year.

Mordaunt took issue with the notion that her department had been fully informed, saying the charity didn’t disclose that the Haiti case involved sexual misconduct. Oxfam also incorrectly told the government that no aid beneficiaries were harmed, she said.

When asked by BBC interviewer Andrew Marr whether the statement about no harm coming to Haitians was “a lie,” Mordaunt replied: “Well, quite.”

She said she would meet Oxfam leaders Monday to discuss the case.

“If they do not hand over all the information they have from their investigation and subsequently to the relevant authorities,… then I cannot work with them anymore as an aid delivery partner,” Mordaunt said.</s>LONDON: The deputy chief executive of Oxfam resigned on Monday (Feb 12) over the British charity's handling of a prostitution scandal in Haiti involving its staff members and allegations of similar behaviour in Chad.

"As programme director at the time, I am ashamed that this happened on my watch and I take full responsibility," Penny Lawrence said in a statement.

Oxfam has faced severe criticism for a lack of transparency over misconduct allegations against staff members accused of using prostitutes in Haiti following a devastating 2010 earthquake.

The charity has denied covering up the scandal.

Oxfam's chair of trustees Caroline Thomson and chief executive Mark Goldring had been called to explain themselves at a meeting earlier on Monday with International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt.

The minister has threatened to cut government funding for the charity unless it shows "moral leadership".

The EU on Monday also warned that the bloc would withhold funding if charities breached ethical standards.

"We expect Oxfam to fully clarify the allegations with maximum transparency as a matter of urgency, and we're ready to review and, if needed, cease funding to any partner who is not living up to the required high ethical standards," EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told reporters.

The allegations centre around Roland van Hauwermeiren, who was Oxfam's country director for Haiti and was previously the head of the charity's mission in Chad.

Oxfam investigated sexual misconduct allegations in 2011 and van Hauwermeiren was one of three staff members who resigned while four others were dismissed.

Investigations into the seven men examined the use of prostitutes, downloading of pornography, bullying and intimidation.

The Times newspaper, which broke the story, reported on Monday that the charity knew of allegations about van Hauwermeiren's conduct during a previous posting in Chad, but still appointed him to direct its response to the Haiti earthquake.

"Over the last few days we have become aware that concerns were raised about the behaviour of staff in Chad as well as Haiti that we failed adequately to act upon." Lawrence said in her statement.

"It is now clear that these allegations - involving the use of prostitutes and which related to behaviour of both the Country Director and members of his team in Chad - were raised before he moved to Haiti.

"I am desperately sorry for the harm and distress that this has caused to Oxfam's supporters, the wider development sector and most of all the vulnerable people who trusted us."

Goldring accepted Lawrence's resignation, saying he "deeply respected" the move.

"Like us, she is appalled at what happened and is determined to do what is best for Oxfam and the people we exist to help," he said.

Oxfam also did not inform French charity Action Against Hunger about the circumstances of van Hauwermeiren's dismissal, and he went on to work as its mission chief in Bangladesh from 2012 to 2014.

The director of investigations at Britain's Charity Commission, which regulates the voluntary sector, accused Oxfam of not giving them the full story during the investigation.

"Had the details of what has come out been told to us, we would have dealt with this very differently," Michelle Russell told BBC Radio 4.

Andrew MacLeod, the former chief of operations of the UN's Emergency Coordination Centre, warned on Monday that "predatory paedophiles" were targeting charities.

If aid workers engaged in sexual activity with under-age children, which Oxfam strenuously denies, they could be prosecuted in Britain, he added.

"The impact of sex tourism laws make it unlawful for anybody to have sex with children under the age of 16 anywhere in the world or aid, abet or support that," he told the BBC.</s>Oxfam officials are set to meet with Britain's international development secretary in a bid to retain government funding amid a deepening scandal over sexual misconduct by the charity's workers in Haiti.

Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt is demanding that Oxfam show moral accountability and provide full disclosure about the case. On Sunday she threatened to pull public funding from Oxfam unless the charity reveals everything it knows about allegations that some of staff used prostitutes, some of whom were minors, while working in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country.

Oxfam has apologized unreservedly, but denied that it attempted to cover up the scandal.

Former International Development Secretary Priti Patel has said there is a "culture of denial" about exploitation and sexual abuse in the aid sector.
United Kingdom Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt tells BBC One that Oxfam's failure to pass on information regarding sexual misconduct allegations of its workers in Haiti and Chad shows an "absolute" absence and failure of moral leadership.