Oxfam and Save the Children bosses face grilling from MPs

Oxfam and Save the Children bosses will go before MPs this morning following allegations of abuse and misconduct by staff working after the earthquake in Haiti.

Directors from the Department for International Development will also face a grilling by members of the international development select committee this morning.

Oxfam offered its 'humblest apologies' to Haiti in a meeting between two senior members of the charity's leadership, Simon Ticehurst and Margalida Massot, and Haiti's minister of planning and external cooperation.

Oxfam, which has more than 10,000 staff working in 90 countries, denies a cover-up and chief executive Mark Goldring says the intensity of criticism is disproportionate.

But Oxfam's handling of the scandal is being investigated by the Charity Commission and a redacted version of a 2011 internal report revealed three men accused of sexual misconducting Haiti had threatened witnesses during the investigation.

In the report Oxfam said the former director of operations in Haiti, Roland Van Hauwermeiren, 'admitted using prostitutes' at his Oxfam residence after last week denying he paid prostitutes for sex.

Save the Children and Christian Aid have also been dragged into the fallout after an investigation by the Times newspaper first uncovered the extent of abuse. A total of more than 120 workers from a range of Britain's leading charities have reportedly been accused of sexual abuse in the past year alone with new figures collated by the charities revealing that Oxfam recorded 87 allegations of sexual misconduct between April 2016 and March 2017, of which 53 were referred to the police. Meanwhile, Save the Children had 31 cases, 10 of which were referred to the police, and Christian Aid had two.

The hearing before MPs begins at 10.30 and can be watched online here.

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