Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Department for International Development, told the committee that the Oxfam scandal had undermined public support for spending money on aid. When pressed on the ages of the women involved, Goldring said Oxfam’s own investigations found no women were under 18, the legal age of consent in Haiti. “Our investigation included trying to speak to the women involved ... and it interviewed as many of the women as it could trace. It did not go into details at the time about the fact that sexual exploitation was involved. This was wrong.”Caroline Thomson, the chair of trustees at Oxfam, said: “On behalf of the council for Oxfam, we are ashamed of what happened in Haiti.

Source: The Guardian February 20, 2018 12:21 UTC