Dashboard on investigations into sexual misconduct
This dashboard was last updated on 3 May 2024.
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.
Glossary
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 includes sexual relations with a child (18-years-old or younger), in any context.
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.).
Source: The United Nations Glossary on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
This dashboard will be updated on or around the 8th of each month. The numbers are indicated based on the initial allegation received, which may be reclassified in the course of an investigation.
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.)
The number of SEA allegations for AFRO, for the month of July 2023 include the post-facto recording of 19 allegations related to the 10th Ebola Response Operation in DRC (2019) which were investigated by UN-OIOS
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
2023
2024
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
167
Number of training conducted
9729
Number of participants
The format of the dashboard was amended for the June 2023 dashboard onwards. The May 2023 dashboard is archived here.
Contact us
For complaints: Integrity hotline
For programmatic issues: Prevention & Response to Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment Team