'The international aid industry needs to be aware of the scale of sexual abuse happening on their watch': Former UN chief says 'paedophilia' is a word charities dare not say

by Andrew Mcleod, The Daily Mail:

• Andrew MacLeod worked for UN Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Pakistan
• He notes warning paedophiles were turning to developing world 20 years ago
• They gained access to children by working for charities in places where paedophilia is ignored or difficult to police

A middle-aged man who persistently hangs around the gates of a British primary school as children are leaving will attract the wary attention of teachers, parents and, pretty soon, the police.

But the same man lurking outside a school in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, will be quite safe. Especially if he is wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of Unicef, Save the Children, Oxfam or any other internationally-renowed aid organisations.

Almost 20 years ago, the UK’s National Criminal Intelligence Service, warned that due to better policing and safe-guarding strategies and an international crackdown on child sex tourism, predatory paedophiles were turning their attention to the developing world.

And the best way of gaining access to children? Work for a children’s charity in some place where paedophilia is ignored or difficult to police.

Professor Andrew MacLeod, who worked for UN Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Pakistan, said the international aid industry needs to be aware of the scale of sexual abuse happening on their watch

Everyone working in the international aid industry needs to be aware of the scale of sexual abuse – happening on their watch and often involving their personnel – of vulnerable people, especially children. 

Those who deny it are either lying through their teeth, or have their heads buried so far in the sand that their ignorance is deliberate.

Now, in the wake of the Oxfam scandal and claims that some aid workers may have had sex with under-age prostitutes in Haiti, the public is at last waking up to this appalling state of affairs.

Shamefully, in aid circles it has been common knowledge for almost 30 years.

I was first alerted to it in 1996 while working in former Yugoslavia with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

People would talk about a nightclub called Florida 2000, in the Bosnian city of Zenica, where girls of 14 and 15 were working as prostitutes.

These children were being trafficked into Bosnia from neighbouring Moldova by individuals working for the UN and Bosnian police. They were used exclusively for the sexual gratification of UN staff.

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