Why Sex Scandals Persist In The Humanitarian Aid World

It's a story that has stunned the public.

Last week, a report by The Times of London found that in 2011, the national director for Oxfam in Haiti and senior aid workers hired local sex workers while working in the country. After an internal investigation, the Times reported, Oxfam accepted the resignations of three men and fired four for gross misconduct.

At the time, the charity was providing relief efforts after the 2010 earthquake that killed 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless.

Across social media, critics and Oxfam donors expressed their outrage.

For staffers and researchers in the humanitarian sector, the incident in Haiti was disturbing — but not shocking. For decades, there have been reports of relief workers sexually exploiting the very people they are trying to help.

"I wasn't surprised by the revelations. This is a sector-wide problem," says , a human rights lawyer and founder of Report the Abuse, a project that researched sexual offenses