Chelsey Rhodes stared at the document two executives had slid across the desk to her.

It was a confidentiality agreement. By signing it, she would be agreeing not to publicly discuss what she had experienced while working for the non-profit Engineers Without Borders Canada.

“I felt ill,” she says.

She recalls glancing at the garbage can next to her in the board room. She’d asked for it in case she needed to throw up, she says.

“I thought, ‘This is not a choice. I don’t have an option.’”

She signed the settlement and received $15,000.

That moment — some six years ago now — was a pivotal one for Rhodes, who would eventually renege on her agreement and ignite a public firestorm by bringing forward allegations of sexual harassment and bullying against Engineers Without Borders and its staff.

Rhodes' description of her experience emerged against the backdrop of what has been dubbed the #AidToo movement. It’s been a contentious time for the non-profit sector, broadly, with scandals threatening to shake the public and government goodwill that is the bedrock of its funding model.

Humanitarian organizations are a regular vehicle for governments looking to do good in the world. In the 2017-18 fiscal year, the Canadian government gave $812 million in funding to humanitarian organizations that deliver foreign aid. There are currently hundreds of foreign aid projects receiving funding from the Canadian government, operating in dozens of countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Mali and Tanzania.

Aside from public and government goodwill, the organizations also rely on the young and idealistic believing in what they do.

“This sector promotes themselves as the good doers and as the saviours of everyone else. They attract quite idealistic people,” says Shaista Aziz, who spent 15 years working for some of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations.

That formula also creates a situation that can leave some vulnerable.

In 2018, news reports made public allegations that Oxfam workers had paid earthquake victims in Haiti for sex in 2011. In June, a U.K. government commission found Oxfam had an internal culture that tolerated poor behaviour.

The Oxfam case highlighted what many in the humanitarian community had known for years — charities were not immune to #MeToo revelations.

Speaking about the sector generally, Aziz says it is “rife” with people who abuse their power.

“They also attract all sorts of people that know they can abuse the loophole. If you’re going to be travelling all around the world and go into countries that are impacted by conflict ... you will have even more power than you had in Toronto, for example.”

Aziz co-founded the advocacy group NGO Safe Spaces in an effort to raise awareness of the problems in the humanitarian aid industry.

“It is very much part of the culture inside a lot of these organizations, where casual sexual relations with members of staff are seen as being normal,” she says.

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In 2011, Rhodes was fresh out of a master’s program in health studies. Engineers Without Borders’ sanitation program in Malawi was exactly the kind of work the then-27-year-old wanted to do. The Canadian non-profit delivers humanitarian aid to sub-Saharan Africa by investing in small businesses and improving access to basic needs, such as clean water in communities.

Rhodes, for her part, worked with locals to apply best practices in rural communities.

After having dinner with her supervisor one night, Rhodes says, they had sex.

The next day, Rhodes said her supervisor became “overly hostile and abusive,” toward her and continued to harass her in the following weeks.

She alleges that he drew diagrams he said demonstrated her flaws in front of co-workers, and that he made comments about colleagues’ breasts in front of her. She says that at times he would become so angry he would scream at her in public until they were asked to leave.

In the weeks after her supervisor allegedly started harassing her, Rhodes says, her hair started falling out and she began vomiting from stress. She says she did not report her experience at the time to her bosses in Toronto, because she did not feel safe doing so.

Rhodes did not complete her fellowship with Engineers Without Borders and instead returned to Canada with the help of family.

The supervisor did not return the Star’s multiple requests for comment.

Four months later, Rhodes started experiencing dizzy spells, anemia and insomnia — symptoms of what a psychologist diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, stemming from “a traumatic relationship with (Rhodes’) employer.”

While Engineers Without Borders twice hired lawyers to review what happened between Rhodes and the organization, it did not share the results of either review with her, she says.

Aziz says that humanitarian aid organizations need to open themselves up to watchdog organizations — ones that aren’t being paid by the organizations they investigate.

“An organization cannot be left to investigate itself. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Aziz, the co-founder of NGO Safe Spaces.

Rhodes says she felt bullied by upper management’s refusal to publicly acknowledge its role in what happened to her.

In a January 2013 email, Engineers Without Borders co-founder and CEO at the time George Roter wrote to Rhodes: “I sense that you are frustrated with the lack of progress on reaching a resolution. ... I would also like to point out that your emails are taking an increasingly threatening tone, which I worry will be destructive to our ability to work together to find a solution that is best for you and also for other members of the organization.”

Over dozens of emails, Rhodes continued calling for compensation and accountability from the non-profit for the mistreatment she says she experienced. In September 2013, the organization responded by offering her $15,000 with the stipulation that she not talk with anyone about her experience.

Most of the executives, including Roter, have since left Engineers Without Borders.

While Roter says he treated Rhodes' allegations "with the utmost seriousness from the moment they were brought to my attention," in retrospect, he says, he would have done some things differently.

“Specifically, I do regret that we didn’t do more to ensure (Rhodes) was more fully involved in the investigation,” he said in an emailed statement. “I have no hesitation expressing this regret.”

In January 2019, Rhodes went public with her Engineers Without Borders experience on Twitter, violating the confidentiality clause she signed in 2013. Her social media post cast a spotlight on her within the humanitarian aid community, a place already on high alert for signs of misconduct.

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Engineers Without Borders held at least one conference call with members to answer the questions flooding in after Rhodes went public. In May, several chapters announced boycotts against the organization.

In an open letter addressed to the board of directors, members Juliette Escande and Aspen Murray said they felt “disappointed and betrayed” by the non-profit’s “misogynistic response” to Rhodes’ allegations.

Global Affairs Canada told the Star it was aware of Rhodes’ allegations and that the department had been in contact with the non-profit regarding its internal review into the matter. Engineers Without Borders was scheduled to receive $9 million in Canadian-government funding between 2015 to 2020.

Finally, in August, eight months after Rhodes spoke out publicly, Engineers Without Borders released a lengthy public statement in response.

“As an organization, we are confident that we acted appropriately and addressed all concerns that (Rhodes) raised in mediation. That said, we regret that she was not offered more acknowledgment and support at the time,” it read.

Engineers Without Borders’ statement said Rhodes had told them in 2013, when she signed the settlement agreement, that the relationship between her and her supervisor was consensual.

It was in 2014 that Rhodes raised the issue again, this time saying she experienced sexual harassment, according to Engineers Without Borders.

“The legal advice at the time was that the issue had in fact been raised before and was covered by the mediated agreement, therefore the Board of Directors of the time was not made aware of it,” the non-profit’s statement read.

Engineers Without Borders went on to say it regretted that Rhodes had a “negative experience” with the organization and that the non-profit would no longer use confidentiality agreements in “personnel matters.”

It said that since the issue of sexual harassment was brought to the board, “the chair and members have made every effort to investigate, listen, understand and act. They have met with Chelsey numerous times to understand her position and have made every effort to address her concerns in a compassionate manner. A full review has been conducted with input from Chelsey Rhodes, chapter members, two legal firms, a gender consultant, a consultant on human rights as well as past and present staff members. Two independent legal reviews have also confirmed our position that EWB’s duty of care was fulfilled through our mediated process. As such, this case will not be reopened.”

Rebecca Kresta has been involved with Engineers Without Borders since 2010 and became the chair of the board in June.

She stands behind the non-profit’s public statement and says the organization has been “incredibly transparent” in outlining how it responded to Rhodes.

“We have taken a lot of steps to work co-operatively with Chelsey and find a positive path forward,” she says.

“We have to have this balanced approach. We sought to apologize in as many ways as we could. And that’s about where we can get to.”

The statement also listed the various ways the non-profit said it is making things better for those reporting harassment, including an independent ombudsperson, a complaints and policy procedure and an updated sexual relations policy.

But Rhodes says the non-profit’s response did little to repair the harm she says it inflicted on her and others.

“This statement is light years way from a glimmer of understanding of what they have done wrong and how they have harmed people,” Rhodes told Star Vancouver, hours after it was posted.

“There isn’t even a glimmer of remorse here.”

***

NGO Safe Spaces co-founder Aziz says that if non-profits are serious about repairing harm and regaining trust, it’s essential that they allow an independent body to investigate allegations.

“It’s beyond parody really that they can feel comfortable investigating themselves. There needs to be clear transparency,” she says.

She says that independent body should be the federal government, noting that it could take proactive steps to address the underlying cause of #MeToo-type allegations in the humanitarian aid sector.

According to the Global Affairs Canada website, as of September 2019, partner organizations such as Engineers Without Borders applying for federal funding are required to have a code of conduct on preventing and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse.

But Aziz says those types of policies do little because they don’t address the root causes of abuse — the systemic divide of power along racial and gender lines.

In "organizations where power is mostly centred with white men ... there is a massive disparity of power, which leaves the gate wide open for abuse.”

She suggests that collecting information about the race and gender pay gap in the sector would be a good place for the Canadian government to start.

Meanwhile, Rhodes and former Engineers Without Borders employee, Alex Fox, are gathering testimonies from other employees on a website called Total Systems Failure, in what they describe as an effort to hold the non-profit accountable.

“If more people did what I considered the baseline ethical behaviour and had integrity,” Rhodes says, “it wouldn’t be such a burden on the few people who are willing to step up.”

Wanyee Li is a reporter with the Toronto Star based in Vancouver. You can follow her at @wanyeelii

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