AP Photo/Kudra Maliro
“Jolianne” was 13 in April 2019 when, she says, a driver for the World Health Organization pulled up to her while she was selling phone cards on the side of the road in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The man offered her a ride home, and the child climbed inside his vehicle.
But, the girl says, instead of dropping her off at home, he stopped at a local hotel, where he raped and impregnated her, according to an internalWHO investigative reporton what has become the most expansive reported sex scandal in the organization’s history.
Residents of Beni, DRC Congo wait in line for the Ebola vaccine amidst the country’s tenth Ebola epidemic, July 13, 2019.AP Photo/Jerome Delay
AP Photo/Jerome Delay
“To get ahead in the job, you had to have sex,” a woman identified in the WHO report as Nadira said, adding sex was suggested to her in turn for “if I wanted to get a basin of water to wash myself in the base camp where we were staying during the retaliation.”
Health workers at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, DRC Congo, July 16, 2019.AP Photo/Jerome Delay
A dozen men also came forward alleging sexual abuse and exploitation, according to the WHO report, but it was not immediately clear if they were considered eligible for the cash payment.
Map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The $250 does not quite stretch to four months of living expenses in DRC Congo, according to the AP, which totaled the cash payout at $26,000, or about 1 percent of the $2 million in WHO’s “survivor assistance fund” for victims – mostly in DRC Congo – of sexual misconduct.
Some women refused compensation, others were likely hindered from receiving it based on the additional course requirements, and others, like a woman the report refers to as “Audia,” told the AP that the money was “really insufficient.”
Anifa, another alleged victim, at home in Goma in DRC Congo, March 5, 2021.AP Photo/Kudra Maliro
Last year – a year after the Independent Commission released their report – WHO postedan updateon the organization’s progress toward the commission’s recommendations to avoid such abuse in the future.
Dr. Gaya Gamhewage.Antoine Tardy/WHO via AP
Antoine Tardy/WHO via AP
In the 2022 statement, the director noted “initial progress in many areas to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.” She added: “We have a long way to go.”
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Gamhewage told the AP inan undated interviewin a recent article published as part of a long-term investigation: “Obviously, we haven’t done enough.”
Health workers in an Ebola isolation tent in Beni, DRC Congo, July 13, 2019.AP Photo/Jerome Delay
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the AP ina 2021 interviewthat four of the accused perpetrators had been fired and another two put on administrative leave. He did not provide names to the outlet.
The spokesman told PEOPLE that in addition to money, the organization provided the victims with “a full package of services” including medical, mental health, legal and case management support, along with training in income-generating activity in which victims could choose from several classes. The AP investigation revealed that WHO required the victims to take the classes in order to receive the $250 payout.
source: people.com
