by Gabrielle Reyes
An unknown number of additional women have accused World Health Organization (W.H.O.) staff of sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) during the agency’s response to the country’s Ebola outbreak from August 2018 to June 2020, Reuters reported Wednesday.
“More people [have] come forward alleging abuses by aid workers at the time,” Reuters paraphrased Dr. Gaya Gamhewage — the W.H.O.’s acting director of prevention and response to sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment — as saying on October 27.
“We have heard through the inter-agency network that there are more complaints in Goma,” she said. Goma is the capital of D.R.C.’s North Kivu province.
Gamhewage said she could not verify the exact number of new allegations as she “did not have access to the complaints due to confidentiality issues.”
Several local residents of the D.R.C.’s North Kivu and Ituri regions have accused at least 21 W.H.O. staff members of perpetrating acts of “sexual abuse and exploitation (S.E.A.)” against them during a period spanning August 2018 to June 2020. The W.H.O. employees were stationed in eastern D.R.C. as part of the United Nations (U.N.) health agency’s response to a regional Ebola outbreak. An independent commission contracted by the W.H.O. to investigate the allegations of S.E.A. published its initial findings on September 28.
full story at https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2021/10/29/w-h-o-faces-another-round-of-sex-crime-allegations-during-ebola-crisis/