OXFAM

FOR many people, Oxfam has been synonymous with being an international aid agency that has done great good in the world. Disturbing revelations this week, however, that some of the organisation’s staff have been indulging in sexual exploitation around the world leaves Oxfam open to charges of betrayal that is even filtering down to the roots of the charity – its humble high street shops.

Oxfam’s leaflets and posters, tirelessly turned out – day after day, week after week – remind us of the vital humanitarian work the organisation carries out in conflict zones and disaster spots in every corner of the globe. Volunteers who often wear the instantly recognisable green Oxfam T-shirts have become a familiar sight on TV news coverage of the plight of Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh or families trying to escape the blood-soaked horrors of Syria.

Oxfam’s noble mission statement can be found on its website. It says: ‘People have a right to life and security, to a sustainable livelihood, to be heard, to have an identity, and to have access to basic social services.’

In the eyes of the public Oxfam has enjoyed an almost unrivalled reputation as a force for good: a quaint, reassuringly old-fashioned organisation, epitomised by its High Street presence.

These outlets – the only point of contact most of us have with Oxfam – have, in the words of Oxfam’s chief executive Mark Goldring, “become the generic name for [charity] shops, in the same way that vacuum cleaners are referred to as Hoovers.” There could be no better indicator of how ubiquitous Oxfam has become.

In fact, Oxfam bears little resemblance to this popular image.

Oxfam has 1,200 shops worldwide (630 in the UK), employs around 10,000 staff (plus 23,000 volunteers) and has a turnover of £415million; it is a multinational company – a corporate behemoth – in all but name.

Nevertheless, it has managed to maintain a heartfelt place in the hearts and minds of the British public; until now.

In 2011, we now know, senior aid workers in earthquake-torn Haiti indulged in orgies with prostitutes – ‘full on Caligula orgies’ described as ‘young meat barbecues,’ reportedly. Some of the women were allegedly younger than 16.

What an utterly terrible betrayal of Oxfam’s noble ideals the revelations of sleaze and sexual exploitation which now engulf the charity.

 

THE SCANDAL – apart from anything else – sits uncomfortably with the flow of sanctimonious pronouncements emanating from the charity in recent times.

All charities, by necessity, must occupy the moral high ground, of course. But at the peak of this metaphorical summit is Oxfam.

So rarefied is the atmosphere at the organisation’s £30million British headquarters in Oxford that you could be forgiven for thinking that staff have to be issued with oxygen masks to work there.

Among its many declarations is the claim that capitalism is to blame for creating global privation because 82 per cent of money generated last year went to the richest 1 per cent of the planet’s population, apparently. Only Oxfam could get away with making such politicised (and spurious) statements; charities are supposed to remain politically neutral, after all.

What would Oxfam’s founding father make of it all, one wonders? It was on October 5, 1942, that a group of citizens, mainly Quakers, concerned about civilians caught up in the battles of World War Two gathered in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford and called for blockades so food could reach people starving in Europe – particularly famine-riven Greece.

The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (now Oxfam) was born.

A party to mark the 75th anniversary of Oxfam, attended by 500 guests, was held in Oxford town hall in October. The hall was decorated with display boards showcasing Oxfam projects over the years – ‘striving for a world where it doesn’t have to exist.’

Among the guests was 85-year-old Roger Baker, the charity’s longest serving volunteer, who has been supporting Oxfam for 48 years. His father, Wilson Baker, a chemist, was part of the original committee which set up the first Oxfam shop in Oxford’s Broad Street in 1945. Among the early donations to the shop was a live donkey.

Mr Baker said: “When you join a family, you stay.” The retired teacher said his involvement in Oxfam has meant “helping the disadvantaged people of the world, allowing them to help themselves.”

 

BY the early 1960s, the tweedy members of that first meeting – including Mr Baker Snr – would have been flabbergasted by Oxfam’s expediential growth. The Beatles, no less, did a benefit concert for Oxfam in 1963.

By the 1970s, Oxfam became active in Latin America and the Caribbean, and spearheaded the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa.

In the 90s, Oxfam sent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – or real horses – over Westminster Bridge to protect the consequences of cutting aid to developing countries. In 2010, a group of pregnant women recreated Charles Ebbet’s iconic view of New York construction workers – ‘lunch atop a skyscraper’ – to highlight the dangers of childbirth in the developing world.

And last year, Oxfam turned Trafalgar Square into a ‘tropical tax haven’ with palm trees, a sandy beach and businessmen in a call to end tax dodging that ‘robs poor countries.’

Mr Goldring added: “Our work providing life-saving aid and standing up for the rights of the world’s poorest people would simply not be possible without the compassion and support of the British public.”

The Chief Executive’s current salary is £125,248 – less than the bosses of other charities – but not an inconsiderable sum nonetheless.

Oxfam, incidentally, receives £300million a year from public donations and British government funds – and by implication taxpayers – including the kind of businesses Oxfam has gone out of its way to criticise when it blamed the ills of the world on capitalism. How embarrassingly ironic that Oxfam now finds itself at the centre of a scandal that in days gone by would have made a lurid front-page headline for the now defunct News of the World.

Yet the scandal exposed this week goes beyond Haiti. Official figures collated by charities show that Oxfam reported 87 incidents of sexual harassment last year alone. Of these, 53 were referred to the police or other statutory authorities. A total of 20 staff or volunteers were dismissed.

The statistics raise troubling questions about regulation in the beleaguered charity sector already tarnished by allegations of hard-sell solicitous tactics. It was previously disclosed, for example, that in 2015, staff at a call centre raising funds for Oxfam employed unscrupulous tactics to squeeze cash from the elderly (in one case a 98-year-old) and cancer sufferers. New recruits were told to ignore the “excuses” of potential donors pleading poverty and any requests to stop calling. Oxfam was later found to have breached the industry code following a six-month inquiry by the Fundraising Standards Board.

There is an old saying that Mr Goldring and his PR team will no doubt be pondering over in the aftermath of his organisation’s latest scandal: It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation and only minutes to destroy it.