'Humanitarian' Organizations That Aren't

Yeah, well, that's the marketing material, and no doubt some fraction of that is true. But there is a darker side, just as there has been to UN peacekeeping and aid distribution, and every NGO that presents itself as the selfless good guy. 

2/ Staff at Doctors Without Borders were engaged in “pattern of abuse and sexual exploitation , in some cases targeting underage girls or trading food or jobs for sex with refugees, according to a confidential internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.”

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 13, 2026

In 2024, the Associated Press printed a disturbing story about refugees from the Sudan war who made it into Chad, only to be sexually abused by aid workers. 

The story didn't get a lot of coverage at the time, but Doctors Without Borders conducted an internal investigation—in secret—only to discover that its aid workers in Chad were part of the sex trafficking ring taking advantage of refugees. 

The Doctors Without Borders report — completed in July and first reported Saturday by The Associated Press — found 59 allegations of abuse and said 18 staff members were dismissed and barred from future employment. In some cases, the group told AP, the allegations couldn’t be verified or the perpetrators identified. The report also said some of the repeated exploitation suggested potentially organized “sexual trafficking.”

The organization said it launched the monthslong investigation in response to AP reporting that women had accused staff of sexually exploiting them in displacement sites in Chad, where hundreds of thousands fled from Sudan’s devastating civil war, now in its fourth year. The report credited AP as playing “a fundamental role as an external whistleblower.”

The findings by Doctors Without Borders — one of the largest employers and biggest aid organizations in the refugee camps in eastern Chad — indicate the abuse was more widespread than previously reported.

The report was completed months ago and kept confidential to avoid scandal. The Associated Press apparently was leaked a copy of it, and in addition to the discovery of sexual abuse in Chad—which was described as the "tip of the iceberg" since so many refugees refused to talk about it, and the population is very mobile—it also details that sexual abuse of refugees and local employees for the organization is actually not uncommon. 

Sexual exploitation has repeatedly surfaced during humanitarian crises despite years of efforts by aid organizations to prevent abuse.

In the cases AP found in Chad in 2024, women said people meant to protect them — humanitarians, local security forces — offered money, easier access to assistance and jobs in exchange for sex. Such sexual exploitation in Chad is a crime.

And in its report, Doctors Without Borders noted that the cases found in Chad stand out because it had allocated extra resources to combat and prevent abuse. The memo also said the findings likely only scratch the surface, as many women were hesitant to speak openly.

Extra resources were allocated because there was already a recurring pattern of similar abuse within its ranks over the years, mirroring what often occurs with aid organizations. Access to food, medicine, jobs, and other forms of aid was dependent on women agreeing to be trafficked for sex. 

MSF launched its investigation in fall 2024 and found allegations of exploitation and abuse of Chadians, Sudanese refugees, and MSF staff and contractors.

The report says the group was investigating several cases of sexual exploitation of female refugees in exchange for food, water and milk. It also found cases of sex in exchange for jobs, and the prostitution of female refugees, including underage girls. It cites a block in a refugee camp where staff were seen searching for girls, and said community leaders implemented a curfew to prevent young girls from “‘visiting’ MSF staff.”

In one incident cited in the report, seven refugee girls, allegedly hired as daily workers, were put into an MSF vehicle and told they were going to water distribution and construction sites. The girls, however, were taken to a different location and “exposed to” sexual abuse and requests for sex, according to the report.

Of course, it's not just Doctors Without Borders that has this problem. The United Nations has had its share of sex trafficking scandals, and the abuse in Chad included other, unnamed aid organizations. 

This is, inside the aid world, a known problem, as the report points out. 

As a result of the investigation, the report said, 18 staff — including international, local and contractors — were or were about to be classified as “Do Not Hire.” But the report said there was no system in place to share names of people flagged as such, specifically for local staff, meaning they could get jobs in another MSF location.

The report made several recommendations: clearly communicating expected behavior to staff, employing “serious reference checks,” and creating one effective database for “Do Not Hire” staff.

Still, MSF acknowledged in the report that it had previously experienced similar allegations — the 2021 Ebola outbreak in Congo and reports of widespread exploitation and abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers in several West African countries in 2002 — but little had shifted overall.

“As a reminder, a rather similar diagnosis and recommendations were made in 2021,” said the memo. “Yet this led to no significant change.”

At some point, we have to recognize that slapping the designation of "nonprofit" or "aid workers" on an organization, or taking the word of "activists," doesn't necessarily make one the good guy. It's not that you can't do good things; it's that you need to ensure that the people claiming to do good things really are, and hold them accountable when they don't. 

9/ @MSF_USA Ms. Hassan, your silence protects the predators and abandons the victims. You have a duty to act immediately. Order a full independent investigation. Fire every abuser and enabler. Compensate the girls. Publish the complete July 2025 report. Deliver justice—or resign.

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 13, 2026

The moral authority of Doctors Without Borders has been politically useful to some of the most vile people in the world. For instance, the organization helped staff hospitals in Gaza that were used as Hamas headquarters, and its denials helped Hamas propaganda operations. 

Reminder that Doctors Without Borders spent two years at Nasser Hospital before admitting Hamas was using it as a terror base.

During that stretch, the group refused to treat 20 Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid workers wounded by Hamas, leaving them to die in the courtyard https://t.co/eJf5xLeuHZ pic.twitter.com/qZcLAFOeNo

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 14, 2026

No doubt many people who volunteer with the organization do good work, but the organization first looks out for itself. That's true of all organizations, and all too often that means corruption can flourish.