Mark Schuller

Mark Schuller is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nonprofit and NGO Studies at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. He is the author or co-editor of seven books, including Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti. Schuller is co-director / co-producer of documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009), and active in several solidarity efforts.

Oxfam’s Sex Scandal: Haiti’s Latest Indignity at the Hands of Dogooders

Structurally speaking, NGOs are not accountable to the people they serve or the host governments. They are only accountable (and this story shows the limits of this) to their donors and countries of origin.

Mark Schuller
By Mark Schuller
A girl takes out the trash to an open air dump, behind, in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 21, 2017. (AP/Dieu Nalio Chery)

I was in Cuba when the Oxfam “Caligula” sex scandal in Haiti broke. Knowing my work in the field, a colleague with years of experience working in disaster response agencies asked me what I thought. When I had the chance to catch up on the story, my response included, “I wasn’t surprised.” She was horrified. “Underage girls wearing nothing but

Read Full Article