Oxfam faces losing funding as crisis grows over abuse claims

Government threatens to end funding unless charity demonstrates ‘moral leadership’ over Haiti sex misconduct claims

Kevin Rawlinson and Robert Booth
Sun 11 Feb 2018 20.33 GMT

Oxfam was scrambling on Sunday night to contain a growing crisis over claims of sexual misconduct by aid workers before a crunch meeting on Monday that could see the charity stripped of its government funding.

Amid anger from the government and the wider aid sector at revelations that Oxfam staff in Haiti paid prostitutes – possibly underage – for sex in 2011, the charity’s chair of trustees, Caroline Thomson, pledged to widen a review of its practices to include the Haiti allegations and admitted “anger and shame that behaviour like that ... happened in our organisation”.

She set out the steps Oxfam would take to avoid a similar scandal in future after the international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, issued a damning rebuke to the charity. Mordaunt warned that it would receive no more public money unless it demonstrated “moral leadership” and handed over all information on aid workers’ alleged use of prostitutes on the island.

One senior figure told the Guardian the charity was already facing “a challenging funding context” with the government before the scandal broke and so losing its state budget – £34m last year – was a real concern.

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