Question Period Note: Sexual Misconduct in International Assistance

Incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse in the delivery of international assistance continue to be brought to light.

• Canada strongly condemns all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse in the conduct of aid operations. These incidents undermine efforts and legitimacy, violate human rights, and are an abuse of power and trust.
• Canada will continue to promote gender equality and human rights through its international assistance as building blocks of a culture of zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, and will work with others to close accountability gaps within the aid sector.
• Canada expects its partners to protect against, respond to, investigate and report instances of sexual exploitation and abuse while taking into account the rights and needs of survivors.
• Canada takes this issue seriously and expects partners to have the highest safeguarding standards and to conduct thorough investigations when allegations are made.
• This case in the DRC highlights existing gaps in the sector urgently need to be closed to end impunity for misconduct and increase accountability. To strengthen accountability in the humanitarian system, Canada is supporting the work of The New Humanitarian.

Incidents of sexual misconduct within the aid sector and accountability gaps that allow perpetrators to escape responsibility continue. Canada has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse and expects all cases occurring in the context of Canadian-funded projects to be reported and properly investigated using survivor-centered approaches.

GAC's General Terms & Conditions require partners signing a new contribution agreement for international assistance to have a publicly available Code of Conduct on prevention and response to sexual exploitation and abuse.

Our guidelines on applying for International Humanitarian Assistance outline how partners must align their codes of conduct with the internationally-recognized principles relating to sexual exploitation and abuse and the accompanying minimum operating standards.

In 2018, Minister Bibeau sent a letter to Canadian civil society partners detailing Canada's expectations for safeguarding against sexual exploitation and abuse. As G7 President, Canada led the negotiation of the Whistler Declaration on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in International Assistance.

The New Humanitarian released an article "EXCLUSIVE: More than 50 women accuse aid workers of sex abuse in Congo Ebola crisis" (2020-09-29), following an investigation conducted with the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Organisations mentioned include WHO, UNICEF, IOM, Oxfam, World Vision, ALIMA, CARE International and Médecins Sans Frontières, with workers of various nationalities, including Canadian.

Since 2018, Canada has provided nearly $15M in emergency humanitarian assistance in response to the Ebola outbreak and $10M through its development program with UNICEF in Ituri and North Kivu.

CBC reported "Green Party's executive director resigns after internal probe of his past conduct causes turmoil" (2020-10-04) following another story on an internal investigation into his behaviour and harassment complaints at his past workplace, Engineers Without Borders (EWB). GAC contributed $9M to EWB's Volunteer Sending Program for 2015-20.

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