22, June 2018
Exposed: Médecins Sans Frontières workers in Africa used ‘very young’ prostitutes 0
Some senior staff working for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Africa have allegedly used “very young” local prostitutes, the BBC reported on Thursday, citing former staff members of the renowned charity. The not-for-profit group said it took the allegations seriously – which according to the BBC involved logistical staff, and not doctors or nurses – but said it had so far been unable to confirm the claims and urged anyone with information to come forward.
The aid industry has been shaken by reports of sexual wrongdoing since it emerged in February that Oxfam staff paid for sex in Haiti during a relief mission after a 2010 earthquake. A former employee based in MSF’s London office told the BBC she had seen a senior staff member bring girls back to MSF accommodation while posted in Kenya.
“The girls were very young and rumoured to be prostitutes,” she said, adding that it was “implicit” that they were there for sex. She said some of the older, long-standing male aid workers took advantage of their positions.
“I felt that, with some of the older guys, there was definitely an abuse of power,” she said. “They’d been there for a long time and took advantage of their exalted status as a Western aid worker.”
She questioned what the charity knew, saying: “There’s definitely a feeling that certain predatory men were seen as too big to fail.” “It is quite breathtaking,” former aid worker Shaista Aziz says on claims MSF staff used local prostitutes.
Another female employee who worked with HIV patients in central Africa said the use of local sex workers was widespread. “There was this older colleague, who actually moved a woman into the (charity) compound. It was pretty obvious that she was a prostitute but he’d call her his girlfriend,” she said.
A third whistleblower described how a senior colleague boasted of trading medication for sex with girls in Ebola-hit Liberia.
“He said, ‘Oh it’s so easy. It’s so easy to barter medication with these easy girls in Liberia’,” she told the programme. “He was suggesting lots of the young girls who had lost their parents to the Ebola crisis, that they would do anything sexual in return for medication.”
The BBC said it had not been able to verify that particular allegation. In an email to FRANCE 24, the head of press for MSF UK stringently denied the claim that medicines have been traded for sex, a practice she said would be “completely abhorrent”.
In all, eight female ex-MSF workers came forward in the BBC report, saying the charity, which employs 42,000 people worldwide, has a “toxic” culture. In a statement, the agency said, “We do not tolerate abuse, harassment or exploitation within MSF.”
“We are sorry for any instances where people have been subjected to harassment, abuse or otherwise mistreated and/or felt that it was not adequately dealt with.” “We know that MSF is not immune to these issues and we take any reports seriously,” the charity’s statement added.
But it said that “based on the information provided, we have been unable to confirm the specific allegations”. “We would urge anyone with any concerns to report them via MSF’s confidential whistleblowing mechanisms so that we can take action,” it said. MSF said 20 people were sacked in 2017 for sexual abuse or harassment, and 10 people the year before.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, REUTERS)
23, July 2018
AIDS experts gather in Amsterdam amid fears epidemic could still spiral out of control 0
A world AIDS assembly opens in Amsterdam on Monday hoping to harness the star power of activists Elton John and Prince Harry to bolster the battle against an epidemic experts warn may yet spiral out of control. Thousands of delegates — researchers, campaigners, activists and people living with the killer virus — will attend the 22nd International AIDS Conference amid warnings that “dangerous complacency” may cause an unstoppable resurgence.
In recent days, experts have alerted that new HIV infections, while down overall, have surged in some parts of the world as global attention has waned and funding has levelled off.
And they lamented that too sharp a focus on virus-suppressing treatment may have diverted attention from basic prevention programmes such as condom distribution, with the result that the AIDS-causing virus is still spreading easily among vulnerable groups.
“The encouraging reductions in new HIV infections that occurred for about a decade has emboldened some to declare that we are within reach of ending AIDS,” Peter Piot, virus researcher and founder of the UNAIDS agency, said last week.
However, “there is absolutely no evidence to support this conclusion,” he insisted, and warned: “The language on ending AIDS has bred a dangerous complacency.”
A UNAIDS report warned of a long and difficult road ahead even as it reported a drop in new infections and AIDS deaths, and a record number of people on life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART).
These hard-fought gains could be reversed, experts said Sunday as the finishing touches were put on the venue that will host some 15,000 delegates — also including celebrities Charlize Theron and Conchita — for five days.
An alarming rate of new infections coupled with an exploding young population in hard-hit countries could spell “a crisis of epic proportions,” said Mark Dybul, a veteran American AIDS researcher and diplomat.
“Bad things will happen if we don’t have more money,” he told a pre-conference, saying the world was “probably at the highest risk ever of losing control of this epidemic.”
‘No’ to war on drugs
Dybul and colleagues said donor and domestic funding has dropped significantly and would likely continue to decline, from about 20.6 billion euros ($24.1 billion) last year — most of it financed from the domestic budgets of nations with the heaviest AIDS burden.
According to UNAIDS, the funding gap is almost $7 billion per year.
Under Donald Trump, the US administration has proposed massive spending cuts, though these have so far failed to pass through Congress.
The United States is by far the biggest funder of the global AIDS response.
The immune system-attacking HIV virus has infected nearly 80 million people since the early 1980s. More than 35 million have died.
Today, data show the infection rate is rising in about 50 countries, and has more than doubled in eastern Europe and central Asia.
Experts regret that the focus on prevention has faded.
Last year’s 1.8 million new infections showed that “unless we did something completely drastic, we will not get anywhere near” the target of no more than 500,000 in 2020, said Nduku Kilonzo of Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council.
“We have a crisis and it is a prevention crisis,” she said.
At high risk are sex workers, gay men and people who inject drugs — many of whom are forced onto society’s fringes by repressive laws in their countries.
At the conference, NGOs will launch a liberalisation campaign titled: “Just say no to the war on drugs,” a direct challenge to the 1980s Reagan administration’s “Just say no” message at the height of America’s “war on drugs”.
The programme’s criminalisation of drug use has compounded the stigma and discrimination experienced by users.
(AFP)