FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 22, 2021: The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a "management response plan” outlining how it will address sexual exploitation and abuse over the coming months and years. The plan was published in the wake of the final report of an Independent Commission established to investigate widespread sexual offenses committed by WHO personnel during the 2018-2020 Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Paula Donovan, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign, reacts:
This is a giant step backward. The WHO is treating dozens of violent crimes alleged against its own personnel and top officials as simple breaches of UN rules. If governments allow the UN to get away with this, it will be a solid victory for UN impunity.
The entire process reinforces the bogus notion that UN personnel and senior officials are above the law. The WHO-controlled commission and its aftermath have been a lengthy exercise in damage control and an elaborate means of preventing any involvement by national police and courts. WHO created a yearslong smokescreen to mislead the world into believing that if UN personnel rape and abuse women and children, the only response required is a UN self-investigation to determine whether its own rules and regulations have been broken. WHO officials themselves should be investigated for a prolonged obstruction of justice that violates the rights of victims and the citizens of the DRC.
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(UN Photo/Manuel Elías)