Response to a Scandal: Sex Work, Race and the Development Sector in Haiti
By: Maree Pardy and Kalissa Alexeyeff
In 2018, the development and humanitarian sectors were rocked by a newspaper exposé about an alleged Oxfam cover-up of sexual misconduct by its staff in Haiti in 2010. Phrases such as “…a Caligula orgy with prostitutes in Oxfam T-shirts” and other “horrific behaviour” in an Oxfam guesthouse, which was known as “the whorehouse,” powered the electrified tone of the breaking story and the ensuing, relentless media coverage. In our article we examine the development sector’s response to this media generated scandal and argue that its commentaries on matters of sex, sex work, race and gender were as problematic as the scandal itself.
The events reported by the media were neither new nor news. They had occurred in 2010, had been investigated by Oxfam, staff were removed, and safeguarding programs bolstered. The newspaper claimed however that Oxfam had “covered up” its handling and internal investigation of these events.
The “cover up”, we argue, was deployed as a tactical trope to convey newness, and to defend the story as newsworthy. The cover up, however, was not (and arguably was never intended to be) the major focus of the media coverage. The sensationalist, titillating and sexualized reportage scandalized the alleged cover up, with sexual scandal “sticking” to the image and reputations of Oxfam and the development and humanitarian sectors as a whole.
Oxfam, depicted as a depraved organization despite its laudable and highly respected history of accomplishment, struggled to find a clearing in the maelstrom from which to speak or be heard. Oxfam emphasized that it had investigated the events, taken appropriate action, released a report and had not engaged in any cover up. This response gained meagre media traction, because the story was no longer, if it ever was, about the cover up; it was about the sex.
Oxfam entered the fray through the tenor of remorse. It apologized for the behavior of its staff in Haiti, describing their activities as “totally unacceptable, contrary to our values and the high standards we expect of our staff”. It pledged to stand “firmly against the exploitation and abuse of women and girls”. Oxfam media releases expressed “anger and shame” and gave assurances that it puts “women at the heart of everything” it does to “make life better for poor and vulnerable people”.
The development sector, and Oxfam in particular, were, of course, blindsided by the severity of the media offensive. Nonetheless, the sector refused to challenge or question the salacious and racialized depictions of the scandal. This, we argue, made Oxfam complicit with media framings of the Haitian sex workers as unspeaking, sexually abused victims, to be spoken about and for. By opting not to challenge the media representations of the events, Oxfam’s response not only reinforced the “scandalous” narrative, but in so doing revealed the sector’s deep-seated moralism (pertaining to sex work) and its sexualized racism (pertaining to “Third World Women”).
The Haitian sex workers were constantly portrayed by the sector as objects of suffering, warranting aid and assistance, but the workers themselves were never heard nor were they ever visible as active subjects of the controversy. Instead, the harms they suffered, were underlined as the raison d’être of development, and an cunning means through which development organizations might atone for their own alleged wrongdoings. The Haitian sex workers were produced by the sector not only as victim-subjects but as their victim-subjects.
Oxfam responses cohered with media reportage that bundled together rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, harassment and exploitation and conflated these with sex work, and the sale and purchase of sexual services. These terms were neither disaggregated nor differentiated, producing, intentionally or not, the Haiti scandal as a space from which the aid sector could apologize for a range of dissimilar issues (actual sexual harassment) known to have bedeviled the development aid and humanitarian sectors for some time.
In addition, the sector’s responses always portrayed the Haitian sex workers as cisfemale, authorizing racial and gender stereotypes and erasing all differences among them in terms of gender identity or the forms of sex work they engaged in. Sex work was characterized exclusively and erroneously as the exploitation of women by men.
The singular representation of sex workers throughout the Haiti scandal as victims of abuse and exploitation is not borne out in research, which illustrates the multilayered experiences and contexts of sex work. We draw on this research to depict sex workers’ self-described experiences and investments in their work, and the layered complexity of the global sex industry they work within, all of which was absent from the sector’s response.
Development and humanitarian organizations are aware that a reckoning with the racism and coloniality that founds and continues to shape the sector is upon it. Organizations now openly discuss their decolonizing intentions and aspirations. We hope that this article, critical as it is, can be received both as provocation and contribution to this moment. Confronting the colonial and heteronormative origins of development and humanitarianism, revealed in our article by reconsidering aid’s historical and ongoing credo that entangles race, gender, sexuality and sex work, is we suggest, the sector’s decolonizing obligation.
Read the full article here: Response to a Scandal: Sex Work, Race and the Development Sector in Haiti
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Maree Pardy teaches in International and Community Development, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. She specializes in the areas of gender, culture and race, and researches gender and difference in global contexts.
Kalissa Alexeyeff teaches in the Gender Studies Program, School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne. She specializes in the areas of gender and sexuality, globalization and development. She has conducted research in the Pacific and the Pacific diaspora over the last 25 years, particularly Cook Islands and Sāmoan communities.