Winnie Byanyima pledges to stamp out abuse after International Labour Organization rules that agency breached duty of care

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

The head of UNAids said the agency would “take stock, learn and become a stronger and better organisation” after a tribunal ruled that it had failed in its duty to deal adequately with complaints of staff harassment.

In an email to staff, Winnie Byanyima, who promised to stamp out abusive behaviour when she took over the agency in November, said losing a case at the International Labour Organization tribunal – the highest internal court of appeal – was “very significant”.

The tribunal decided that in two cases against UNAids brought by Sima Newell, a former director in the agency, the UN body had “breached its duty of care” and had not dealt with her complaints of harassment properly. It ruled there was “sufficient evidence that the complainant suffered harassment over a period of time”.

Byanyima said the rulings, announced last week, would be studied closely “to ensure that our management action plan and internal culture change initiatives are doing everything necessary to see that cases are properly handled, and that our management systems and practices are preventing cases from arising in the first place”.

However, Newell said Byanyima’s comments were weak and there was little indication that serious steps were being taken by the agency.

Newell lodged a complaint of harassment by Jan Beagle, who was then deputy executive director of UNAids, in 2016. The agency’s executive director, Michel Sidibé, recommended the case be closed after an internal investigation failed to substantiate the allegations.

Newell appealed against both the investigation’s findings and UNAids’ handling of the case. Beagle, meanwhile, was promoted to lead the UN’s special taskforce on sexual harassment.

Beagle, now director general of the International Development Law Organisation, said she was disappointed by the tribunal’s decision, arguing that the initial investigation it overturned had been “extremely thorough”.

She denied any misconduct and said all her decisions were “managerial in nature”.

“At no time was I aware that she considered my decisions offending – on the contrary, I continued to ask my colleagues to try to support her, as I did myself,” she said.

“The tribunal was clear that none of the persons involved had any opportunity to participate in its proceedings or to provide their version of events.”

In her email, Byanyima said: “The tribunal found that UNAids had failed in its duty of care towards a former staff member who had alleged harassment and improper assignment to a UNAids position.

“The tribunal also underscored that these matters have taken too long to address in our internal justice system, and I agree with that. Whenever justice is delayed, it creates unnecessary hurt and distress for a complainant.”

Newell said she was unconvinced by Byanyima’s pledges to transform the agency’s culture and was not impressed by her characterising the protracted complaints process as causing “hurt and distress”.

“It was minimising, it was more of the same,” she said. “This was way beyond distressing, I was on burnout leave for seven months.”

She said she was disappointed the email did not explicitly admit that harassment had taken place, as the tribunal had recognised.

“If UNAids and Byanyima cannot acknowledge harassment in the ranks after the tribunal was so clear, then they cannot begin to put in place the necessary safeguarding measures,” she said.

“I fear that this smells of more of the same of what we experienced under the previous administration – protecting the higher-ups while giving lip service to zero tolerance and putting in place ineffective measures; I sincerely hope I am wrong.”

Newell said that she was forced to take sick leave in 2015 after three years of being bullied, isolated, given excessive workloads and undermined by having work delegated to her subordinates by Beagle.

The tribunal found Beagle’s actions “created a hostile work environment” for Newell and that she should have recognised the potential to offend or humiliate, even if that was not her intention.

It also ruled that Newell was unfairly given reduced responsibilities by Sidibé on her return from sick leave.

Newell said she sent Byanyima a letter in November 2019 asking for a meeting and that she hoped she could have advised the new UNAids head on how to make changes to the investigations process. She said she did not get a response.

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Newell said it has been four years since she first filed complaints about her treatment but she still has two appeals waiting with the ILO tribunal.

“I could help other people not go through this, but they [UNAids] would rather fight a legal case,” she said.

“It’s very clear they’re not engaging with the problem. It has to be dealt with because you’re giving the message that it’s OK – and it’s not OK.”

Sidibé, the former UNAids chief, was accused by another ex-staff member, Martina Brostrom, of attempting to bribe her with a promotion to drop her sexual harassment complaint against Luiz Loures, Sidibé’s former deputy. Loures denied her claims and was cleared of wrongdoing by an investigation.

Sidibé has denied the claim, but admitted to World Health Organization investigators that he had met with Brostrom to suggest they “see how we can really find a way out without making it a big problem for all the organisation and for the credibility of the organisation, for yourself”.