Switzerland's aid agency has frozen CHF1.25 million ($1.52 million) in funding to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) over how the charity handled sexual exploitation by its staff in Chad, swissinfo reported Oct. 26. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) held back one tranche of the CHF6.25 million it pledged MSF for this year.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the war in Sudan for eastern Chad since 2023. MSF worked in the camps with Swiss public money. Photo: The Swiss PressThe Swiss foreign ministry says MSF breached its contractual obligation to report, and NZZ am Sonntag writes that mistrust of the charity is "now immense within the Confederation." MSF has acknowledged its mistakes. NZZ says MSF's internal investigation turned up 59 reports of sexual violence and exploitation, mostly involving women and girls who fled the war in Sudan, and that 18 staff were dismissed, six of them from MSF's Swiss branch.
The SDC had a warning early, according to the internal emails NZZ reports on. The first alert came from MSF's Geneva headquarters by email in November 2024, "shortly before the end of the working day." It said three female refugees "are reported to have described cases of sexual exploitation in Chad; the allegations are reportedly already under investigation."
READ MORE AT SOURCE »
« Back to The Culture War
