No, abusive men in the aid sector won't 'grow out of it'

Beyond the horror stories and investigations into allegations of sexual abuse in the humanitarian field is the broader problem of workplace culture and the sexism and toxic masculinity at the heart of many NGOs’ operations.

In the humanitarian sector there is a subset of aid workers – usually white male international staff – who remain blind to the way gender impacts on their work. They consider the issue an annoying detail that NGOs should be allowed to leave at the door when the context is an emergency and bombs are falling. The problem is seen as especially trivial when raised by young women who management and HR assume simply can’t handle the “hardship posting”.

When you work and socialise on the same compound with the same people, and upper management continues to be male dominated, professional and personal boundaries are inevitably blurred. When you are sick in the field, your doctor is your boss. When you go drinking at the weekend, it is with the same man. This results in subtle and unsubtle power plays in the field, often with much poorer behaviour than is seen in other professions.

Sexual harassment and sexual “ownership” of new expatriate female staff is a significant part of this story. In rural Africa we saw that visiting HQ managers liked to discuss the foolishness of past (female) staff whose dalliances with local men had led to pregnancy, redundancy and humiliation. These “lessons” were apparently aimed at coaxing isolated or lonely female staff into the arms of HQ visitors.

Source: theguardian