Dashboard on investigations into sexual misconduct

Dashboard on investigations into sexual misconduct

The dashboard

This dashboard is about honoring the Director-General's commitment to transparency and accountability. The situation at WHO has evolved. The activities deployed by its accountability functions, in particular the Office of Internal Oversight Services (IOS), to prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to cases of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), Sexual Harassment (SH), and Abusive Conduct (AC) has changed too. There is now a dedicated unit of specially trained investigators who investigate allegations of sexual misconduct with a victim/survivor-centered approach. The team was conceptualized and created in November 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, they organized the workload and began investigating the older SEA/SH cases in the inventory. By the second quarter of 2022, they cleared the SEA/SH backlog. As new complaints are received, the sexual misconduct cases are worked in real time. These cases now have an end-to-end investigative process of 120 days. Similarly, there is team for abusive conduct that is now working through the abusive conduct backlog.

Sexual misconduct is serious and the impact on victims and survivors is tremendous. Timeliness, responsiveness, and fairness given to allegations of misconduct are integral to building and maintaining trust in the organization. Likewise, transparency and accountability are central to IOS delivering on its mandate and is a part of WHO's unified plan.

Please use this link to see the disciplinary measures taken so far on substantiated allegations from this initiative.

 

What are Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), Sexual Harassment (SH), and Abusive Conduct (AC)?

Sexual exploitation and abuse relates to the behavior of WHO staff and collaborators towards third parties, often referred to as “beneficiary” populations.

Sexual exploitation

Sexual exploitation is any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including threatening or profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another.

Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse is the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions. Sexual exploitation and abuse also includes sexual relations with a child, in any context, defined as: Child - a “human being below the age of eighteen years.”

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment refers to prohibited conduct in the work context and can be committed against UN staff and related personnel. In context of the United Nations, sexual harassment primarily describes prohibited behaviour against another UN staff or related personnel, which may also include nationals of the host state. It is defined for UN staff by ST/SGB/2008/5 and similar directives for uniformed personnel and involves any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favour, verbal or physical conduct or gesture of a sexual nature, or any other behaviour of a sexual nature that might reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offence or humiliation to another, when such conduct interferes with work, is made a condition of employment or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.

Abusive Conduct

For the purpose of this dashboard, Abusive Conduct refers to all misconduct against persons, except Sexual Exploitation, Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Harassment (eg. Harassment, Discrimination, abuse of authority, bullying, etc.)

 

This dashboard will be updated on or around the 8th of each month.

This dashboard was last updated on 4 July 2023.

 

Key figures

42
Number of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases opened during the previous month
21
Number of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases closed during the previous month
443
Number of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases in an open status at the end of the previous month
 

Number of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases opened for each WHO region for the past 12 months

Total number of recorded Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases over the past 12 months per WHO region. The region “Other” represents cases handled by IOS in relation to entities administered by WHO (e.g. UNAIDS, UNITAID, UNICC, etc.)
 

Cumulative number of Sexual Misconduct cases opened per WHO region for the past 12 months

Cumulative number of recorded Sexual Misconduct cases for each of the past 12 months per WHO region. The number for each month represents the total number of cases received since M-12 The region “Other” represents cases handled by IOS in relation to entities administered by WHO (e.g. UNAIDS, UNITAID, UNICC, etc.)
 

Cumulative number of Abusive Conduct cases opened per WHO region for the past 12 months

Cumulative number of recorded Abusive Conduct cases for each of the past 12 months per WHO region. The number for each month represents the total number of cases received since M-12 The region “Other” represents cases handled by IOS in relation to entities administered by WHO (e.g. UNAIDS, UNITAID, UNICC, etc.)
 

Number of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases closed each year

As of 1 November 2021, WHO placed an increased emphasis on the investigation of Sexual Misconduct cases
 

Breakdown of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases

2022

2023

 

Location of current Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct cases

 

Number of outreach and education activities conducted by IOS in the field of Sexual Misconduct and Abusive Conduct since January 2022

153
Number of training conducted
8706
Number of participants
 

The format of the dashboard was amended for the June 2023 dashboard onwards. The May 2023 dashboard is archived here.