The international aid group Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), found a pattern of abuse and sexual exploitation by some local and foreign staff working in Chad along the Sudanese border, 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.
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 organised “sexual trafficking.”
The organisation 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 organisations in the refugee camps in eastern Chad — indicate the abuse was more widespread than previously reported.
Sexual exploitation has repeatedly surfaced during humanitarian crises despite years of efforts by aid organisations 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.
In response to questions about the memo, MSF called it “a candid internal analysis” that laid out where systems failed.
The 59 allegations of misconduct ranged from sexual harassment to exploitation and abuse and “represent a serious breach of MSF’s values and responsibilities, and we deeply regret the harm caused,” MSF said in its written response.
MSF operates in contexts where people are vulnerable and dependent on humanitarian assistance, which creates power imbalances and risks of abuse that must be addressed, MSF’s statement noted. It said the investigations were meant to proactively confront the abuse.
In some of the cases investigated, tracing the people involved wasn’t possible because of the scale of the emergency and movement of people, it said.
Since issuing the report, MSF has strengthened recruitment efforts, reference checks and complaint systems, it told AP.
Still, the group said in its statement that it recognized that significant work remains to ensure lasting change.
