FJA Shortlist 2021

Category: Outstanding Investigative Reporting

Authors: Robert Flummerfelt, Nellie Peyton and Ange Kasongo

(Senegal/ Democratic Republic of the Congo)

More Than 50 Women Accuse Aid Workers of Sex Abuse in Congo Ebola Crisis

The original publication is available via the following link: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/2020/09/29/exclusive-more-50-women-accuse-aid-workers-sex-abuse-congo-ebola-crisis

The New Humanitarian (Switzerland) - 29 September 2020

Robert Flummerfelt, Contributor to The New Humanitarian, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Nellie Peyton, West Africa correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, based in Dakar, Senegal

BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo

More than 50 women have accused Ebola aid workers from the World Health Organization and leading NGOs of sexual exploitation and abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an investigation by The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation revealed.

In interviews, 51 women – many of whose accounts were backed up by aid agency drivers and local NGO workers – recounted multiple incidents of abuse during the 2018 to 2020 Ebola crisis, mainly by men who said they were international workers.