PSEA is the acronym used for the Prevention against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.\u00a0About a decade ago, the world began to discover that sexual exploitation and abuse were possible, and even at times rampant, in the humanitarian world.\u00a0 Scandals in large international NGOs were made public and the international development and humanitarian sectors began to pay close attention. Offenses varied from straightforward requirement of sex for food aid to more complex grooming and trafficking of children. There are many lessons the international NGO community has learned over the last decade and MCC has been working on implementing best practice in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our PSEA work is figuring out how to make sure no one in any MCC or MCC supported program is sexually exploited or abused.\u00a0MCC hired a full time PSEA Coordinator a few years ago and last winter all of MCC Asia leadership went through an in-depth training. A brief outline of steps forward emerged amongst this messy topic.\u00a0Our first responsibility is to train everyone \u2013 staff, partners and communities that we work in regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.\u00a0 Then we need to make sure we have effective ways for all people to report sexual exploitation or abuse. Finally, we have to figure out how to investigate a report in a culturally sensitive, victim-centered way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Training was a challenge and we\u2019re still working on it! It requires a rather delicate conversation due to translation and cultural norms.\u00a0Translation issues have included trying to translate a poster created by MCC about PSEA.\u00a0Multiple translations came back in ways that blamed the victim or excused the behavior.\u00a0We finally got one that works!\u00a0 Next, we discovered that the Khmer language has no word (or concept) for neglect.\u00a0This is based in the way Buddhism is practiced here. Everyone born into their role has been put there based on their behavior in a past life.\u00a0So powerful people have the right to abuse their power because they earned that right.\u00a0Weak people must have behaved badly in their past life and have been punished with a weaker status. This even extends to children. As a colleague explained, while it is sad and shameful to see parents not take care of their children, if the child had been good in a past life, they would have been born into a family with parents who care for their children. So all this begs the question \u2013 how do we begin to suggest that a powerful Western-based organization like MCC has a responsibility to the vulnerable people we are working with?\u00a0 And further, how do we communicate that we really do want poor farmers and at-risk youth to report sexual exploitation and abuse, when the entire culture clearly states that they deserve whatever good or bad happens to them?\u00a0We don\u2019t have any answers, but we\u2019re working on it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our first staff training day was scheduled for March 2020.\u00a0 That was massively delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but we were able to meet together this year in February to train our staff on PSEA and a few other topics.\u00a0This is the first training any of them can remember having about this topic.\u00a0Emotional conversations happened as some people stated that clearly it is the fault of the woman and how she dresses, if something happens to her.\u00a0Others insisted that it is the fault of the person who has done wrong.\u00a0Watching the face of one woman as she digested the idea that \u201cit\u2019s not her fault\u201d, I realized that part of her resistance to the ideas was that by shifting her belief she lost the power to protect herself by wearing the right clothing.\u00a0And just as it is freeing and empowering for people to realize its not their fault that a crime occurred against them, I am now struggling with how to help my staff feel safe when the tried and true mental certainties are no longer stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a complex issue. We\u2019re still working on putting a reporting mechanism in place.\u00a0We\u2019re holding a training for partners next month online and hope to have a full partner gathering session on the topic next May, COVID-19 permitting.\u00a0We\u2019ve looking into ways of training investigators and talking with local people about what is the least harmful way to address situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will say, for all the complexity of implementing these worthy policies in the Cambodian context, MCC has done a great job on training the expat staff.\u00a0 Charles and I received multiple trainings in PSEA, trauma first aid, and trauma informed responses before we ever left Akron.\u00a0 And last year one or our GSL participants was able encourage a peer in another country to report the weird behavior of her host family, effectively removing that peer from harm before anything damaging occurred. She said that she knew the situation was weird and reminded her peer about the training they had done together with MCC before they started their assignment, and that\u2019s what gave her the courage and the knowledge of how to speak up.\u00a0So it\u2019s working.\u00a0We\u2019re holding onto the success stories and going one step at a time toward a program, and a world, that normalizes speaking up about sexual exploitation and abuse and their communities having a trauma informed response.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PSEA is the acronym used for the Prevention against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.\u00a0About a decade ago, the world began to discover that sexual exploitation and abuse were possible, and even at times rampant, in the humanitarian world.\u00a0 Scandals in large international NGOs were made public and the international development and humanitarian sectors began to pay… <\/p>\n