February 13, 2018 — Tamsyn Barton, CEO, Bond said:
"Today, some of the UK’s leading charities met at Bond’s offices to discuss zero tolerance of sexual exploitation across the international development sector. The sector is committed to responding to the justifiable anger felt by the communities we work with, the British public and colleagues.
Every day, the international development sector works to meet urgent needs and solve global poverty issues, but we recognise that in some cases the sector has fallen short and let down the vulnerable people we work with. We are committed to meeting the high standards expected of us and we acknowledge the need for improvement.
NGOs have committed to the following principles:
Ensuring that the culture within our organisations provides a safe and trusted environment that encourages those affected to come forward and report incidents
Assuring the regulatory bodies that they have full disclosure of all safeguarding concerns at the earliest opportunity
Sharing with the regulatory bodies the safeguarding policies and practices already in place, as well as how incidents and allegations are handled when they arise
Where not done already, sharing the details of any incidents with the regulatory bodies
Increasing investment and resources towards safeguarding and protecting the most vulnerable
Ensuring that the highest safeguarding standards are applied throughout our programmes and that best practice is shared across the sector
Carrying out work, which is already underway in collaboration with DFID, the Charity Commission and global bodies, to explore a system of passporting, registration or accreditation of humanitarian and development practitioners which will be accelerated under the leadership of UK NGOs in the hope that it may influence the practice and standards of the global aid community"
ENDS