At least 125 women have disclosed that they were sexually exploited or abused by someone affiliated with the Ebola emergency operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which lasted from August 2018 to June 2020. The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) managed the operation and oversaw the majority of response personnel.
Alleged perpetrators include personnel employed by WHO, other UN entities, non-governmental organizations, and the Congolese government at the time of the operation. Many victims were offered a coveted job with the Ebola response operation in exchange for sex. Some of the women who refused were raped.
The WHO jobs-for-sex scandal appears to be the largest UN sexual exploitation and abuse scandal in terms of the severity and number of offenses committed by civilians in a single country over such a short period of time. The scandal unfolded in a region plagued by long-standing conflict and suffering at the time from a devastating Ebola outbreak.
Media reports of widespread abuse were first published in September 2020 by The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In response to these public reports, WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus empaneled an Independent Commission to examine the allegations and issue a report. The Independent Commission—which took one year to issue its final report—had no authority to conduct criminal investigations, issue arrest warrants, or detain or prosecute the accused.
The Commission’s report noted that the review team heard from a total of 63 women alleging sexual exploitation or abuse, and obtained the identity of 83 alleged perpetrators. Of the identified perpetrators, at least 21 were employed directly by WHO during the Ebola operation.
As a result of the WHO’s internal response to its jobs-for-sex scandal, serious criminal allegations have never been investigated by law enforcement and may forever remain uninvestigated. Serious crimes may go unpunished.
timeline
Key dates and sources for the WHO jobs-for-sex scandal
September 29, 2020: The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation publish an article revealing that they interviewed 51 alleged victims of sexual exploitation and abuse in DRC committed during the WHO-led Ebola response of 2018 to 2020. The article notes that many women were offered jobs with the Ebola operation in exchange for sex.
October 15, 2020: WHO announces the creation of an “Independent Commission on sexual misconduct during the Ebola response in North Kivu and Ituri, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” and publicly names the two co-chairs.
May 12, 2021: The New Humanitarian and Reuters publish a second article describing interviews with 22 more alleged victims of the WHO jobs-for-sex scandal. The same day, an article in the Associated Press reveals that WHO management had been told about allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse while the Ebola response was ongoing but had refused to address them.
September 28, 2021: The Independent Commission publishes its final report, which notes that the commissioners spoke to 63 women victims and confirmed the identities of 83 alleged perpetrators.
September 28, 2021: During a press conference on the Commission’s report, Dr. Tedros announces that WHO is terminating the contracts of the four identified perpetrators who were still employed by the Organization when WHO was “made aware of the allegations against them.”
October 21, 2021: WHO publishes its management response plan, outlining steps it will take in the wake of the scandal.
October 28, 2021: Reuters publishes an article revealing that the European Union has suspended funding to WHO programming in the DRC. The article is based on a letter from the EU Commission, leaked to The Code Blue Campaign, that voices “extreme concern” at the WHO’s handling of the allegations.
March 14, 2022: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, issues a communique addressed to Dr. Tedros highlighting the WHO’s failure to adequately address its jobs-for-sex scandal. The communique, cosigned by the Special Rapporteur on the right to heath and the Chair of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, sheds light on the lack of criminal accountability for perpetrators of UN sex crimes and decries the WHO’s ineffective administrative response to its recent scandal. It requests an official response from WHO within 60 days.
May 21, 2022: Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, Director of Prevention and Response to Sexual Misconduct at WHO, issues a response to the communique, outside of the requested 60-day timeframe.
Paula Donovan speaks to Al Jazeera about the WHO jobs-for-sex scandal in September 2021.
in the news
The Code Blue Campaign’s work has been featured in a range of high-profile outlets including Al Jazeera, the Associated Press, The Globe and Mail, The Lancet, and Reuters.
For a full list of media appearances by Co-Director Paula Donovan and the Code Blue Campaign, see Code Blue in the News.
statements from the code blue campaign
(UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)