Oxfam’s presence in the media has put a negative spotlight on to other large charities, as cases of sexual misconduct have been flooding into the Charity Commission. The range of these safeguarding concerns reach to the level of child sex abuse, which is an appalling statement for these charities’ “values”. Currently, 7,000 people have cancelled their regular donations, and even though this will not impact Oxfam’s operations immediately, with the steady strike on the company, this could put the organization in jeopardy in the future.
The charity has been critical of themselves, and have obliged to the demands of the Government officials, which lead to their release of the new and more intricate action plan.
Their primary concern was the lack of transparency, which is what essentially pushed the company into this situation as they have decided to facilitate internal investigations, rather than work with government officials and take more strict precautions. They were taking cases one by one, instead of re-enforcing their policies of whistleblowing, and they would just dismiss the responsible employees. Publication of past and current cases, might regain a small fraction of the public trust, yet it will not bring back the same engagement with the charity as before.
Oxfam strives to take on the Utilitarian approach, as through their vague statements in interviews and press releases, they were attempting to fit the demands of the government, as it is one of their primary donors. Their appeasement comes in the form of transparency, re-enforcement of the zero tolerance to harassment policy and active engagement with partners in order to re-establish their professional relationships.
The peculiar part of their immediate response, is how they are going to attempt to listen to the public and their demands.
We will ensure two-way communication with them, responding to the concerns they raise and explaining the actions we are taken to learn and change.
via Oxfam.org
This has been evident in their Facebook posts, yet not directly related to the recent sex scandal issues. After the Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, released her statement, the company has been failing to respond to the concerns of the public commentators. If they want to pursue on gaining trust back from the public, they would need to hire an active group of workers who will dedicate their time to answer urgent questions. The public needs recognition, and if a such large organization takes time to fulfill our inquiries, it will demonstrate their dedication to their original promises.
While the organization might have tackled those issues with the accountability of their actions, the primary issue still stands on how they are going to prevent this from occurring in the future once again?
The root of the scandal is how secretive the organization was with hiding these cases, and attempting to put out small fires one by one instead of looking at the overall issue. With their search of finding an investigator that could look into their company’s operations, could perhaps lead no where. The public needs an understanding of how the charity conducts their background checks and selects officials and employees. The same procedure should be released by a third party investigator, who has no alleged ties with the company or has any potential bias with another competitor who could create a detailed analysis, which could later become available to everyone. As I have previously stated, increasing funds for safe guarding does not mean that it will become more effective. It is the credibility of the people who are going to be in charge of these sections, which is vital in the prevention of future misconduct cases.
It has only been a couple of months since the initial scandal broke out, but the pressing concerns will be returning to the media. The company should begin gathering some sort of a report to release in the later months, perhaps even years, in order to demonstrate their progress. This could be presented through statistical data or visual content, because the public would want to see growth before they would change their opinion on the charity once again.
While Oxfam’s approach was more teleological, in the sense that they were attempting to keep up their image even if unethical behavior was detected, yet with the recent scandal outbreak it is evident that they are re-focusing their ethical frameworks into the deontological direction. Their detailed plan might suggest that they will push focus into those smaller areas of the company’s objectives, however they should consider becoming more open with the charity’s operations in order to bring back the public’s trust.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/oxfamamerica/?brand_redir=223287104715778
https://www.oxfam.org/en/immediate-response-actions-sexual-misconduct
Oxfam Scandal 
Once again, I really liked the way that this blog flowed, in terms of the information and the video was placed perfectly. I see the difference between the CEO of Mylan, and the executives at Oxfam, as they clearly apologized to the board and acknowledged that their actions were wrong. This is much more effective then trying to deny that they were at fault. He also mentions that they tried to reach out to the women involved, which is the right thing to do, because by addressing affected stakeholders you are showing effort to rebuild trust. I also agree that putting out a report on the progress they make rebuilding from this would be a good idea, because otherwise the last thing the public will see is this terrible thing they did as opposed to how much they’ve grown since then.
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With Oxfam trying to cover this up initially, it created much more severe consequences for the company’s operations. As I have mentioned to Amanda in a previous post, the director of investigations at the commission, said if details were apparent earlier, they would have dealt with the situation very differently. This just highlights the fact that instead of putting out small fires, there has to be some sort of perspective on the overall issue that is being dealt with.
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I really enjoyed the flow of this blog post and the video as well. I would be curious to see how they would handle the situation if they knew of the details earlier. I completely agree with the idea of letting the public know of their procedure of how the charity conducts their background checks and selects officials and employees.Keeping the public updated on their progress of their improvement would definitely help the issue of trust with their supporters.
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I think that they would still receive just as much backlash as now, however the UK government probably would not have been as harsh with the reduction of funding, in my opinion.
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I understand OxFam’s desire to keep this an internal issue. Normally with for-profit organizations these kinds of issues are handled internally. However when your a humanitarian aid non-profit organization and this occurs in lines of your organizational goals it demands a bigger response than an internal investigation and hushup. There needs to be a human rights investigation by an outside organization into the operations of OxFam as well as the cases that are being levelled against them.
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When there is a sexual involvement with possibly underaged individuals, this issue escalates to another level. Even though there hasn’t been any confirmation on whether the sex cases involved minors, it is still shocking that the organization withheld this information from government officials in Haiti. I think that the more we attempt to cover an issue, the bigger it will blow up.
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Oksana, why do you write so well? It hurts my soul. The flow makes me a happy child and the way you explain your statements is just very pleasant.
When I read “They were taking cases one by one, instead of re-enforcing their policies of whistleblowing, and they would just dismiss the responsible employees”, I thought that I was going to smack someone. That just discourages employees from doing what’s right, and even possibly bringing people with less morals to join the fun.
Another thing I agree with is that there should definitely be a third party checking in all the time – that’s what happens for corporate taxes – why is this any different?
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Aw thank you so much, I’m glad you like it!
This type of approach to workplace conflict just discourages potential employees, or anyone who is seeking a job. This just encourages more unethical behavior, because if the senior employees are allowing this, then someone from a lower division could conduct certain acts.
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