Citation

Matti S. Disasters 2015; 39(4): 626-647.

Affiliation

PhD student, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12128

PMID

25752322

Abstract

Since 2001, there has been a growing consensus that sexual exploitation and abuse of intended beneficiaries by humanitarian workers is a real and widespread problem that requires governance. Codes of conduct have been promoted as a key mechanism for governing the sexual behaviour of humanitarian workers and, ultimately, preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA). This article presents a systematic study of PSEA codes of conduct adopted by humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and how they govern the sexual behaviour of humanitarian workers. It draws on Foucault's analytics of governance and speech act theory to examine the findings of a survey of references to codes of conduct made on the websites of 100 humanitarian NGOs, and to analyse some features of the organisation-specific PSEA codes identified.

Language: en