KEY POINTS

  • Aid workers should not be judged for what they do in their spare time, says a man who delivered aid during Bosnian War.
  • Oxfam has been warned it could lose government funding if it fails to show "moral leadership".

In the wake of Oxfam's sex scandal in Haiti, an aid worker has admitted that he regularly had sex with prostitutes while on a mission during the Bosnian War.

Aid workers should solely be judged by the work they deliver, not by what they choose to do in their spare time, the man told LBC radio on Monday (12 February).

Read more

Steve from Barking told the radio programme that he was an aid worker during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995.

"I've used prostitutes there. At the end of the day, they used to hang around in the lobbies of the hotels," he said.

"I was single, they were willing to do it. What right have you to criticise people like me?"

"Judge me what I do by the next day, when I deliver 1,000 tonnes of grain or food to starving kids," he told James O'Brien.

Steve was reacting to news that Oxfam workers paid for prostitutes, some of who were underage girls, while delivering aid in Haiti in 2011.

On Monday, Oxfam's deputy chief executive, Penny Lawrence, resigned over the handling of the sex scandal. She said she was "ashamed" and took full responsibility for the charity's response to the workers' behaviour.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has said that the government will cut its funding to the charity if it fails to show "moral leadership".

"It doesn't matter you've got good safeguarding practices in place. If the moral leadership at the top of the organisation isn't there, we cannot have you as a partner," she said on the Andrew Marr Show.

haiti earthquake
A woman carries water through the largest camp for earthquake refugees in Haiti Getty

Steve criticised Mordaunt's remarks. He commented: "That woman who said she wouldn't put any more money into charities... when they used to go to Africa, Medecins Sans Frontieres would deliver little vials of eyedrops for £1.20 and it would save a child's sight. So even if you put a quid into charity, you're helping a war-torn kid."

"So everyone get off their high horse and start growing up," he said. "Please don't judge me on what I did on my time off with my own money. Judge me what I do when I went out there for my charitable contribution."