WHO’s Year-Long Probe of Its Own Sex Scandal Thwarts Bona Fide Criminal Investigations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Just as its press conference began, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report by a commission it funded to probe dozens of claims of sex crimes made against WHO personnel during the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the process itself is the opposite of justice. From Paula Donovan, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign:

The UN-commissioned inquiry couldn’t help but uncover serious crimes and gross mismanagement. But no one can genuinely claim that there is anything independent about the way this rash of sex crimes and the WHO’s complicity is being handled. Although it has no legal authority to do so, the UN is once again taking control of investigations and determining their outcomes when its own personnel are accused of crimes. 

WHO's Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hand-picked experts to lead a commission to look into criminal allegations against the agency's personnel and senior officials. The WHO-sponsored commission took a year. Then WHO's Director-General controlled the press conference announcing its findings. The WHO is still deciding whether, when, and in which cases it will alert police and courts.

This is not justice for victims. The UN's member governments must order all UN bureaucrats to step away. Member States must immediately request bona fide criminal investigations. And Dr. Tedros must answer a key question he dodged at his press conference: Will he resign?