The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announced plans on Thursday for a “profound transformation” of its “culture” in the wake of the agency’s latest sexual abuse scandal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.), U.N. News reported.
“The suffering of survivors of sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by World Health Organization staff during the?tenth Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) is going to be ‘the catalyst for a profound transformation’ of W.H.O.’s culture,” W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on October 21.
Tedros referred to several incidents of alleged “sexual abuse and exploitation (S.E.A.)” perpetrated against locals by at least 21 W.H.O. staff members in the D.R.C.’s North Kivu and Ituri regions from August 2018 to June 2020. The W.H.O. appointed an independent commission to investigate the allegations of S.E.A. The commission published its initial findings on September 28 in a damning report that detailed “multiple allegations of rape and offers of employment in exchange for sex,” Tedros acknowledged on October 21. Several alleged victims told the commission’s investigators they became pregnant after being raped by male W.H.O. workers. Some further alleged that their perpetrators then forced them to undergo abortions.
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