Three humanitarian workers look back at their experiences of sexual violence and harassment. This time there must be change

We are three women in our late 20s who have worked everywhere from headquarters to dealing with complex emergencies in the deep field across nearly every continent. We are experts in our lines of work, and we have all been subjected to repeated instances of sexual harassment and violence by men at work. The UN, NGOs, donors – we’ve worked for them all, and every situation has involved some level of sexual harassment or sexual violence on the part of our male colleagues.

We’re the education adviser you forced to have oral sex after driving us home one evening when we were in no position to fight back; who you ran from when we saw each other years later because even you knew that what you did was reprehensible and, yes, criminal. A few weeks after the assault, you received a pin from the agency for your decades of service. Congratulations.

We’re the water and sanitation adviser you grabbed and raped as we walked to the latrine. We’re the fundraiser you warned to stop discussing experiences of sexual harassment at the hands of a senior colleague with other women because talking about his behaviour “violated the code of conduct”. We’re the reporting officer who you told over lunch, with the rest of our team present, that you “wouldn’t kick out of bed”.

Secret aid worker: why don’t we practise what we preach about gender inequality? Read more

We’re the woman you supervised who was so scared to be in the same room as you that we had to self-medicate before having our weekly one-on-one meeting; the woman you propositioned for sex as a form of “stress relief” and to “blow off some steam”; the woman you promised a job if we slept with you; the woman who was so scared by your violent temperament and unwanted sexual advances that we slept between our bed and our wall, clutching a cricket bat for safety.

Report the Abuse – a brilliant advocacy organisation on sexual assault in the humanitarian field – found that 87% of respondents to a survey knew a colleague who had experienced sexual violence in the course of their humanitarian work, while 41% reported having witnessed an incident of sexual violence against a colleague, and 72% were survivors of sexual violence.

What makes female humanitarians particularly vulnerable to abuse is the fact that we work, socialise, and live with our co-workers; we live in volatile environments where laws and rules are broken regularly, and expatriates can often act with impunity. We’re far removed from normal society, and some men seem to be emboldened to behave in ways they never would at home. In many places where we work, legal justice and accountability rarely occur because the structures simply do not exist.

We have been let down by agency counsellors and investigators, who have warned us that, sure, we could report the cases or make accusations of sexual assault and harassment if we chose to, but at our young age, we should know that this would be likely to keep us from ever building a long career. The men involved are moved to another duty station – sometimes with the same organisation, sometimes with a new one – with no ramifications. Some are even given promotions.

It’s virtually unheard of for organisations to protect survivors, to properly investigate and punish the guilty, even when irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing is presented. It’s telling that Report the Abuse, despite doing vital work on the topic, has now ceased operations due to a lack of funding. Humanitarian donors, the UN, and NGOs talk a lot about ending impunity and the culture of abuse in our jobs, but when the time comes to act on it, nothing happens.



Major NGOs are now in the spotlight. There’s talk of parliamentary hearings, that abuse will no longer be condoned and covered up. But we’re willing to bet our NGO salaries that not a single thing will happen.

But something has to change, and it has to change now. We are the backbone of this sector, willing to work in the Maiduguris, Kabuls, Sana’as, and Mosuls of the world, and we have enough to be concerned about without having to fear assault and retaliation from colleagues and employers.

Secret aid worker: what I wish I could say to the people back home Read more

Survivors must be believed without our personal lives being picked apart as part of vindictive, half-arsed “investigations”. When we are not believed, when our stories are mocked behind our backs and to our faces, when the stigma of being assaulted follows us from employer to employer, when the whispers about our “character” (an obvious dog-whistle for our “promiscuity”) begin before we even arrive in a new city, it only works to destabilise and delegitimise the sector and the work we do.



The humanitarian community must stop “disappearing” survivors or paying them off or blacklisting them from employment. Employers must actively work to prevent assault, not reward perpetrators with extended contracts and promotions.

We, the women in this industry, will call you out when you harass us, when you assault us, and when you retaliate against us for daring to find such behaviour unacceptable. We are only going to get louder, and it’s only going to become more painful for you to ignore us. It’s 2017. We know our rights, and we are coming for you.

How do you think the sector should take action on this issue? Contact us with your thoughts and views at development@theguardian.com, with “sexual violence and harassment” in the subject line.