Link to article: https://www.africanews.com/2021/10/02/drc-president-frustrated-by-despicable-sex-abuse-by-who-workers/
The current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi has called for a judicial investigation into sexual violence committed by World Health Organization workers, a body of the United Nations. These allegations stem from 2018-2020 where WHO workers were responding to an outbreak of Ebola within the country.
This call to action stems from a report published by the WHO where 21 workers were found to be committing sexual abuse while in the DRC. In a recent press conference to address the report, the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, officially apologized to the victims of these crimes, promised severe punishment to the WHO workers, and denounced the internal failures of the WHO from preventing these crimes.
In response to these allegations, 53 member countries of the WHO, including the United States and the European Union, demanded a commitment by the organization to prevent any further abuse by its workers, particularly in the DRC.
This clearly puts pressure on all parties: the DRC, the WHO, and member states of the WHO, particularly large donors. The DRC is a poverty-stricken country that can not deal with outbreaks of Ebola such as the one from 2018-2020 therefore, they must let the WHO in the country to provide assistance. However, this also reflects poorly onto the DRC government, as it allowed a foreign IGO to enter its country and commit vicious crimes. Secondly, this affects negatively upon the WHO, as it’s revealed your workers are committing atrocities in front of the international community. Also, this is a significant time in the WHO’s history as it must still serve as a conduit for international collaboration to help fight COVID-19, yet its attention is being turned away over these crimes. Lastly, this affects large donor member states of the WHO like the United States, as citizens of the United States may start to question if their tax dollars helped fund these crimes. Also, the WHO has caught flack from largely conservative voters within the US and this certainly can only damper their image.
This highlights how non-state actors like MNCs, IGOs, NGOs, etc. are much more involved in international affairs. This is a result of globalization, as now organizations work across the globe rather than being localized to one country or region. This also demonstrates the collective goods problem, because it’s against the DRC’s national interest to allow foreign groups to commit crimes within its borders; however, the international community needs to work together to address health pandemics. Also, this connects to a constructivist philosophy because some may argue that countries donate money to the WHO just to help other countries. This would suggest a constructivist philosophy because there is a common interest between countries to support one another.