A Child For A Tarpaulin: Aid Workers’ Price List As They ‘Exchange Food And Shelter For Sex’
June 6, 2021Charity aid workers have a price list of sex acts to exchange for food and shelter, experts have warned.
Sexual abuse by humanitarian workers is “systemic” and discussed so openly that translators are even used to negotiate deals, a conference at King’s College heard on Friday.
Sarah Champion, who chairs the international development select committee, said there is evidence of a “known exchange rate” for aid such as making a child “available” in return for tarpaulins for shelter or women having to exchange sex for employment.
The Labour MP for Rotherham warned that a blind eye has been turned as it is assumed aid workers are “good people” who are “above reprimand” and the recipients of aid are “seen as people who ought to be grateful”.
Ms Champion said: “If you are a woman in a humanitarian crisis desperate to get food for your children and the person standing there who is able to give you that food says ‘you can have the food, but this is what I want in exchange’, who wouldn’t do that for their children?
“How would you know that that wasn’t the rate of negotiation to get that food for your children?
“I’ve heard across different humanitarian crises that there’s almost a known exchange rate. If you want the aid, if you want a tarpaulin, then your child needs to be made available, if you want a job then you are expected to sleep with the person who’s able to give you that job.”