Oxfam crisis: charity investigating 26 new sex abuse claims

Oxfam has received a further 26 abuse claims since revelations over the Haiti scandal broke earlier this month, the UK charity’s chief told MPs today.

“Across Oxfam Great Britain, we have had about 26 stories, reports, come to us which were either new reports come out as a result of the stories, or earlier stories where people said, ‘I didn't necessarily report this at the time’,” Mark Goldring told the International Development Committee.

Goldring is himself the subject of an internal inquiry over his handling of a 2010 case involving a Nigerian country director sacked by the senior manager she had accused of sexually assaulting her, The Times reports.

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Today Goldring issued a “grovelling” apology over the Haiti scandal, governance failings and for his previous comment that it was “not like we murdered babies in their cots”, the Daily Mail reports.

Committee chair Stephen Twigg accused Oxfam of “putting their reputation ahead of their beneficiaries”.

Some 7,000 donors have cancelled Oxfam subscriptions in the wake of the widening scandal, The Daily Telegraph says.

Meanwhile, charity Save the Children told UK MPs it sacked 30 staff after dealing with 120 misconduct complaints in a year.

The charity dealt with 193 child protection and 35 sexual harassment allegations against staff worldwide during the year. The misconduct cases led to 30 dismissals, chief executive Kevin Watkins said, according to The Times.