WHO accuses its own staff members of sex abuse during agency’s Ebola response

Published

3 years ago

September 28, 2021

admin

Twenty-one World Health Organisation (WHO) staff members were allegedly involved in sexual abuse during the agency’s response to the Ebola crisis in central Africa, according to an official report.

The allegations, which include nine of rape, were identified by a special panel commissioned by WHO to look into claims involving the UN’s health agency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It found a total of 83 perpetrators were involved in alleged sex abuse during the two-year response period, including the 21, in what has been called the biggest scandal of sexual wrongdoing linked to a UN institution in years.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the report produced by the panel made for “harrowing reading”.

Apparently referring to the victims, he said: “I am sorry by what was done by people employed by the WHO to serve and protect you.”

He said the findings would require “wholesale reforms of our structure and culture” and all known sex abuse perpetrators would be banned from working for the WHO in future, with four people already fired.

Western diplomatic sources who attended a closed-door briefing with WHO officials have said another two people have been placed on administrative leave.

WHO’s Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said the agency was “humbled, horrified and heartbroken” by the findings.

Both foreigners and Congolese nationals were among the 83 alleged perpetrators identified.

The majority were Congolese staff hired on a temporary basis who took advantage of their apparent authority to obtain sexual favours, the report said.

News agencies AP and Thomson Reuters Foundation, which worked with the New Humanitarian, published separate allegations claiming that aid workers from WHO and leading charities misused their position during the 2018-2020 Ebola crisis in the country.

Among those accused was a WHO doctor and two other agency officials, who were said to have promised to buy land for a young woman who had got pregnant.

WHO chief Mr Tedros made 14 trips to the DRC during the outbreak period and publicly commended the work of at least one of those who was accused by AP.

Nearly 50 countries, including Britain, the US and Canada later issued a statement expressing their “deep concerns” about WHO’s handling of sex abuse claims.

AP has since obtained recordings of meetings during which WHO emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan acknowledged that the DRC sex abuse allegations were likely to be “the tip of an iceberg” and were part of a problem that “does reflect a culture as well”.

A member of the Congolese Union of Media Women (UCOFEM), Julie Londo, applauded WHO for punishing staff members involved in the abuse allegations but said the agency needed to go further.

She said: “WHO must also think about reparation for the women who were traumatised by the rapes and the dozens of children who were born with unwanted pregnancies as a result of the rapes.

“There are a dozen girls in Butembo and Beni who had children with doctors during the Ebola epidemic, but today others are sent back by their families because they had children with foreigners…We will continue our fight to end these abuses.”

WHO has faced criticism from a variety of sources in recent years, with the US cutting ties with it over its relationship with China, and from others over its failure to fully investigate the origins of and response to COVID-19.

World

Stormy Daniels describes awkward and unexpected ‘sexual encounter’ with Donald Trump

Published

5 hours ago

May 8, 2024

admin

Stormy Daniels describes awkward and unexpected 'sexual encounter' with Donald Trump

Porn star Stormy Daniels has described to jurors an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter she claims she had with Donald Trump in 2006.

Ms Daniels was testifying at the former president’s criminal trial over hush money she was paid to keep silent about the alleged encounter during the presidential race.

But it was not all bad news for Mr Trump. On the day the court heard from Ms Daniels, his trial in Florida on charges of illegally keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving office, scheduled to start on 20 May, was postponed indefinitely by a federal judge.

Ms Daniels, 45, speaking at the “hush money” trial, said she tried not to think about having sex with him while it was allegedly taking place.

Trump trial as it happened: Raging ex-president calls for mistrial over ‘difficult to control’ witness Stormy Daniels

Mr Trump, 76, stared straight ahead when she entered the courtroom and occasionally shook his head and whispered to his lawyer.

After the lunch break, Mr Trump’s defence lawyers demanded a mistrial over what they said were prejudicial and irrelevant comments.

The judge rejected the defence’s request and said defence lawyers should have raised more objections during the testimony.

Later in the day, the Trump team used its opportunity to question Ms Daniels to paint her as motivated by personal hatred of the former president and hoping to profit off her claims against him.

“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” defence lawyer Susan Necheles asked.

“Yes,” Ms Daniels acknowledged.

Hush money payment

In the final weeks of Mr Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen paid Ms Daniels $130,000 (£103,000) to keep quiet about what she described as an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Mr Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006.

Mr Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018 related to the payments and served more than a year in prison – with federal prosecutors saying he acted at Mr Trump’s direction.

Mr Trump, the Republican candidate for president again this year, has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up the payment and denies having sex with Ms Daniels.

Imbalance of power

Ms Daniels described how an initial meeting at the golf tournament, where they discussed the adult film industry, progressed to a “brief” sexual encounter she said Mr Trump initiated after inviting her to dinner and back to his hotel suite.

She said she did not feel physically or verbally threatened during the encounter, but she perceived an imbalance of power, with Mr Trump being “bigger and blocking the way”.

She said she found it “hard to get my shoes” after it ended “because my hands were shaking so hard”.

“He said, ‘Oh, it was great. Let’s get together again, honey bunch’,” Ms Daniels said. “I just wanted to leave.”

This was Donald Trump with his trousers down – no doubt | James Matthews

Daniels expected to return to witness stand

Mr Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments.

Speaking outside of court at the end of the day, Mr Trump said: “This was a very big day, a very revealing day. As you see their case is totally falling apart.”

Ms Daniels is expected to return to the witness stand when the trial resumes tomorrow.

World

Trump trial: This was Donald with his trousers down – no doubt

Published

5 hours ago

May 8, 2024

admin

Trump trial: This was Donald with his trousers down - no doubt

There are moments, more than others, that scream the humiliation of it all.

Take this, before Tuesday’s proceedings got underway. “No descriptions of genitalia or anything but it’s important to elicit that she had sex with him.”

It was the prosecution’s assurance prior to questioning Stormy Daniels after Donald Trump’s lawyers had objected, in advance, to her testifying to the details of sexual acts.

It would be that kind of day in this kind of trial.

Trump trial as it happened: Stormy Daniels accused of car park ‘threat’ lie

In a dingy New York courtroom, this was the president and the porn star, together again, in a reunion most reductive for Mr Trump.

He might have secured guarantees on anatomical detail but, from the moment the court heard “The People call Stormy Daniels” this was Mr Trump with his trousers down, no doubt.

Ms Daniels told her story, of growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of a single mother. She edited her high school newspaper, enjoyed ballet dancing and horses and had ambitions to be a technician.

By the time she met Mr Trump, aged 27, we learned she was an adult film actress and director, star of the likes of 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

By her telling, the Trump encounter was more Austin Powers – the penthouse suite, the satin pyjamas and the spanking with a rolled-up magazine.

“Bullshit,” Mr Trump was heard to mutter. His problem is that this kind of bullshit sticks.

Whatever his lawyers’ protestations about Ms Daniels’ credibility – and there are holes – that’s hardly the headline for a watching, voting, public.

What will they take from court to the polling booth in November? Quite apart from the imagery, what message does it send to key demographics?

An affair with a porn star, whilst married, is a poor fit with the principles of evangelicals, so critical to the Trump vote in 2016. Suburban women might also reel from this tawdry peek backstage at the presidency.

How much will Mr Trump worry? About $130,000 (£103,000) worth. It is the premium he paid to stop the story coming out in the first place.

Sadly, for him, the insurance policy has run out.

World

Israel-Hamas war: Hostages’ families urge PM Benjamin Netanyahu to take a deal to get their loved ones home

Published

13 hours ago

May 7, 2024

admin

Israel-Hamas war: Hostages' families urge PM Benjamin Netanyahu to take a deal to get their loved ones home

There is anxiety in Museum Square in Tel Aviv – a space which has turned into a commemoration centre for the 132 hostages still held by Hamas.

A place for quiet contemplation, as well as for crowds who gather hand-in-hand to solemnly sing Israel‘s national anthem.

An agreement to get the hostages out of Gaza is far from certain.

Israel-Gaza war: Latest updates

There is so much confusion around any potential deal.

But most people here want their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come to an agreement and get the captives back home.

We had a chance encounter with Yehuda Cohen.

His 19-year-old son Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier, was taken on 7 October.

Mr Cohen’s message to Israel’s leadership was simple – take a deal.

Right now, however, he is not very hopeful.

“Nothing is moving, we will feel better when something will start moving, that a deal will be on the table, agreed and hostages will start being released,” he said.

Mr Cohen had particular criticism for Mr Netanyahu.

He said of the PM: “He has his own considerations, mainly his private considerations – he wants to survive, he’s thinking only about himself.”

Mr Cohen even challenged Mr Netanyahu in person a few weeks ago about whether a ceasefire would guarantee the release of all the hostages. He did not get an answer.

Doron Steinbrecher, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse, lived at Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas took her away.

The only proof of her abduction was a solitary message on WhatsApp.

“They’ve arrived, they have me,” she wrote.

Her mother Simona Steinbrecher thinks of little else all day.

She says any deal should be accepted to get her daughter back home.

But she admits: “I’m afraid the deal won’t be done, so I don’t even let myself think about it.

“Until someone tells me – Simona, your daughter has come back, I don’t think about it.”

Seven months into this conflict, following Hamas’ killings and kidnappings, the latest talk of an agreement – however near or far it could be – simply provides no relief for so many hostage families.