Comments

The Haiti revelations have done immense damage to the charity sector. Obviously a big problem of proper oversight. The other big problem with foreign aid is that most of the contracts and supplies are sourced in the donor country. Far better to source as much as possible locally.

UNDP and Office of the Development for Women within the Department of Community Development through CIMC Family Sexual Violence Action Committee had established GBV /FSV Secretariats in provinces to coordinate work on GBV implemented by various stakeholders in provinces in PNG. If the Secretary for National Department of Community Development can get a brief from Executive Director for ODW and support the initiative and effort put into establishing Provincial GBV Secretariats so reports on coordination of GBV work in each province can be provided to the government to inform of status and outcome of GBV work in each provinces around the country.

Very well said Amanda. In Papua New Guinea, many citizens do not have identification documents, which is one of the factors that has made the process difficult and the bulk of the population lives in rural areas and access to towns and cities to register their SIM cards is difficult.

Hi Sally, I also enjoyed the article and her discussion on the power imbalances in the sector. However, I was concerned with Lahiri-Dutt’s statements that “women dancing with one another” was bad behavior and that it could be put in the same category as men who engage with (often underaged) sex workers. As an aid worker who has seen these power imbalances firsthand I strongly support her overarching argument but believe she could find more appropriate examples to back up her statements. Thanks for addressing this in your comment.

Thank you Professor Stephen Howes for providing a clear summary of the situation, including a link to Dr Albert Schram's book. A highly respected publisher would not publish a book based on the author's PhD thesis if it is not a real, actual thesis. I attended Dr Albert Schram's presentation at ANU in Canberra in 2016 and was impressed by his efforts to make a positive impact at Unitech and by his frankness about the challenges faced. The situation regarding these spurious court proceedings is indeed worrying. It might give pause to various researchers working in PNG. It certainly makes me a little nervous about what could happen if the wrong person became unhappy about something I said, wrote or did. Thanks again for the blog post, and best of luck to Dr Albert Schram in resolving this situation quickly.

Excellent thinking Clay - we need new thinking to extend the impact of Australia's dwindling aid dollars.

Congratulations, Clay. Well argued. I hope both sides of politics are listening. Obviously, I agree with your essential argument but it will take political commitment to make it happen.

Hilary Smith, thank you for sharing this blog. It is true that language is like a mirror that completely reflects the emotions and the mental state of its users. I liked the way you have explained this fact in your blog. Looking forward to more such informative and interesting blogs.

It's very damaging and yes embarrassing. If Unitec knew all this why let it till some years later? This all sucks

There were/ are so many issues at the University of Technology (Unitech) when Albert Schram was appointed and under his leadership, many of these have surfaced exposing top level executives,and their cronies. The fear of being exposed has triggered these accusations and believe me, as someone who has been living within the Unitech community for a long time, the student body and the community adores and applaud Schram for his contribution. His repatriation is politically motivated. #Justice for Schram#

The PNG police force is simply a collection of guns for hire.

This is a great article and an issue that we in the development world need to face head on. The sexual misconduct scandal is an issue of power, and as you so well point out, Kuntala, so is the positioning of mostly western expatriates as the 'saviours' of the developing world. You are right that all forms of inequality and power abuse are closely connected. We need to face the issues of race and class if we are to achieve gender equality, for example, and poverty itself is a power relation. I do want to make one point, though, and that is that even though sex workers should be supported to achieve agency and power in their own lives and societies, and CARE Australia, for example, does exactly that in the countries where we work, this does not mean that the Haiti situation was anything but an egregious abuse of power. In emergency situations, in particular, INGO representatives are at least perceived to have power over the distribution of humanitarian resources. Lines are blurred between community members and direct program beneficiaries and sex workers themselves are likely to come from those communities. It would be nearly impossible for clients of sex workers to make a clear assessment of whether the worker was empowered or exploited, but in emergency contexts, there would be a good chance it was the latter. To be careless of these issues and to prioritise sexual entitlement is an unacceptable abuse of power. I take your point that the way expatriates (myself included) behave, too often blind to our own privilege, is an issue of power too. But we can't really compare someone dancing to the Bee Gees (horrible as that is!) to the abuse of power and assertion of male sexual entitlement that we have seen through the misconduct scandal. There is not just a spectrum -there are also red lines that cannot be crossed. We INGOs need to do better on all of these fronts, and to recognise our own place in the landscape of power.