UNRWA Staff & Other Aid Workers Sexually Exploit Gazan Women

"...Six human rights and relief organizations — including the local Palestinian group the Women’s Affairs Center and the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse network, which coordinates with various aid groups including United Nations agencies — told AP they were aware of reports of sexual abuse and exploitation linked to receiving aid...

One of the women who spoke to AP described phone calls that began in October, a year into the war. At first, she said, the man’s questions were simple. What happened to her husband? How many children did they have? But, the 35-year-old widow said, his tone took a turn. What underwear was she wearing? How did her husband please her?

She said she’d met the man in Muwasi, a strip of land Israel designated a humanitarian zone. She described standing in line to get assistance and giving her phone number to an aid worker — a Palestinian in a uniform labeled UNRWA, or the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Shortly after he took her number, the late-night calls began. He would ask sexual questions, she said, and she’d stay silent. She said that at one point, he asked to come to her, for sex. She refused, and after nearly a dozen calls but no aid, she blocked his number, she added.

The woman said she reported him to UNRWA in Gaza in a verbal complaint. She said she was told she needed a recording of the conversations as proof, but she had an old phone that couldn’t record calls.

UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said via email that the agency has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual exploitation, takes each report seriously, and doesn’t require proof. But she wouldn’t say whether staff were aware of this particular incident, citing UNRWA’s policy against discussing individual cases, and wouldn’t comment further on its awareness or work on exploitation cases overall...

Four of the women who spoke to AP said the men who solicited them identified themselves as aid workers, and, in one case, a community leader promising aid.

Like the widow, several women said it happened while registering or trying to register for aid, with men taking their numbers — frequently a step in the aid process — and later calling. The women said all the men were Palestinian. Several said they weren’t able to identify which aid group the men seemed to be associated with.

The U.N. and aid groups generally work with local communities: paying people as contractors, using volunteers, or having leaders appointed by the community as liaisons.

The mother of six said the man who promised her a job drove a car with U.N. markings. After their interaction, she said, the messages kept coming — late-night sexual calls and requests for photos. She described dodging them with excuses: She was busy, her phone was broken, she couldn’t talk.

But about a month after their sexual interaction, she saw the man at an aid site, in December 2023. He then helped her get a six-month position with UNRWA, which she completed, she said. She told AP she never reported the man, their encounter or his exploitation attempts.

‘I told myself that no one would believe it,’ she said. ‘Maybe they would say I am only saying this so that they would give me a job.’..."