Global register set up to keep criminals out of aid sector

The UK is to help launch a global register of dangerous criminals with the aim of preventing them finding their way into the aid sector, in the wake of the aid abuse scandal, it has been announced.

As the international development secretary Penny Mordaunt prepared to address a conference on Thursday on abuse within the sector, Whitehall officials confirmed the government planned to put £2m into the first year of a five-year the pilot scheme.

The project will be run with Interpol and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ criminal records office and will cost a total of £10m, Mordaunt’s department, the (DfID), said on Tuesday evening.

It will allow charities to access the international register when carrying out criminal record checks and will be used to arrest more perpetrators across the globe. The officials said the scheme would aim to foster greater information sharing between law enforcement agencies.

Efforts are also to be made to enable a team of seven to nine specialists and investigators to work out of Africa and Asia to provide support to national criminal bureaus in high-risk countries.

“Those in the aid sector will be able to submit a request for checks on prospective employees against national criminal records and Interpol criminal databases,” DfID said on Tuesday. “Interpol will process the requests and when an individual who represents a threat to vulnerable beneficiaries is identified, they will work with the relevant authorities to determine the course of action.”

Officials added: “This initiative will help prevent abuse by stopping high risk individuals from being hired and increase the chances of perpetrators being arrested by law enforcement agencies.”

The announcement follows the Oxfam sexual abuse scandal that rocked the aid sector. Mordaunt told the Times: “The most shocking thing [about the Oxfam scandal] was the inadequacy of that organisation’s response – the utter lack of moral compass as to what the right course of action was towards the victims and in allowing someone who shouldn’t have been in a position of authority to transfer to other organisations.

“The attitude and the culture set by the leaders of that organisation at the time demanded a big response and that response had to be wider than one organisation because this is a global problem. What you saw in Haiti was a complete abuse of power and that cannot happen again.”