Silence in the face of the abuse of power.
You are a Director at the D-1 level.
You have served the United Nations with excellence, dedication, and passion for twenty years.
You just returned from maternity leave while still nursing your daughter.
You are assigned a new supervisor at the Assistant Secretary-General level.
You are harassed, bullied, and abused by your supervisor, the Assistant Secretary-General.
image courtesy of NPR and The InCap
Drained, you go on sick leave. Sleepless nights, nightmares, burnout zone…
You are immediately reassigned to a useless post.
You become marginalized, isolated, and ostracized.
Not content with the marginalization, the Assistant Secretary-General, aided by the Under-Secretary-General, decide to abolish your post.
So they make you an offer destined to guarantee your termination: an immediate reassignment, but this time, to a different continent.
Newborn, family, home. You try hard but know you can’t, so you refuse.
You relapse, and your mental health suffers, so you take another sick leave. But no one cares.
You ask for protection against retaliation, but the Ethics Officer reports to your harasser, the Assistant Secretary-General.
The Secretary-General and his Senior Management Team are so busy advocating for their duty of care, mental health, and well-being strategies that they decide to fire you while on sick leave with a three-day notice.
So you fight back.
You file four appeals to the ILO Appeals Tribunal.
The Assistant-Secretary-General was under investigation.
You are informed that the Assistant-Secretary-General was nominated for promotion to the Under-Secretary-General level. You ask the Tribunal to request a vetting of the ASG for this position since she was under investigation.
The ILOAT says it’s none of their business.
Journalists ask the Secretary-General’s Spokesman about the promotion under investigation. Still, the Spokesman proudly confirms that the Assistant-Secretary-General “has the full backing of the Secretary-General, who very much appreciates her work, especially her leadership of the UN system-wide task force on combating sexual harassment.”
The process for appointments of USGs is still very much governed by the same lack of transparency, lack of merit, and shady deals between member states and the Secretary-General, who continues to violate Article 101 of the UN Charter, which requires him to ensure the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity in the employment of the staff.
And so it goes.
The Assistant-Secretary-General was promoted to the Under-Secretary -General for Management role.
The former USG of UNAIDS, under investigation, issued an official press statement congratulating the ASG for her promotion to the new Under-Secretary-General for Management role and describing her as “a leader who gets results for people” adding that he will miss her “good humor and sound advice.”
In the meantime, you have been terminated.
You are fighting alone, suffering alone.
Your four appeals are still pending before the ILO Administrative Appeals.
Resorting to the system of administration of justice takes years.
So when asked by journalists, your harasser (the former ASG) denies any allegation of harassment and bullying and refers to the thorough IOS investigation, which found all the allegations unsubstantiated.
Then, the truth starts to come out.
Slowly but surely…
First, the Report on the work of the Independent Expert Panel on the prevention of and response to harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power at the UNAIDS Secretariat finds that
The leaders, policies, and processes at UNAIDS have failed to prevent or properly respond to allegations of harassment including sexual harassment, bullying and abuse of power in UNAIDS. The evidence before the Independent Expert Panel of a broken organisational culture is overwhelming.
UNAIDS is governed in a way that has produced a vacuum of accountability. The leadership of the UNAIDS Secretariat fails to accept responsibility for a culture of impunity becoming prevalent in the organisation, a culture that does not ensure a safe and dignified workplace for its staff, and one that fails to respect huma rights in line with law and United Nations values.”
The report further found that the Head of UNAIDS was responsible for fostering a cult of personality and patriarchal management and that he had “enabled a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying and abuse of power.”
Following the independent expert panel’s report, the former USG of UNAIDS resigned immediately.
Then, the first ILOAT judgment (4240) was issued on 10 February 2020.
With respect to the improper reassignment decision, the Tribunal found that the reassignment caused the complainant “stress, distress, physical exhaustion, humiliation and adversely affected her career.”
A second ILOAT judgment (4241) was also issued on 10 February 2020.
Concerning the harassment, gaslighting, mobbing, and bullying allegations that the ASG subjected the complainant to and which, she had consistently denied in public statements, the ILOAT found that
“the actions taken by or on the orders of the former ASG were liable to offend and humiliate the complainant. Moreover, in the Tribunal’s view, a reasonable person would have found the actions offensive and humiliating.”
The former ASG ought reasonably to have known that those actions would have offended and humiliated the complainant, interfered with the complainant’s ability to carry out her work, and created a hostile work environment for her, thus constituting harassment in the terms set out in the Policy.”
The Tribunal also found a lack of fairness, objectivity, and impartiality during the investigation process because the IOS did not interview the witnesses whom the complainant suggested, and all the witnesses initially interviewed were staff under the supervision of her alleged harasser.
The Tribunal noted that the IOS’ report and recommendation to close the harassment case were flawed.
The ILOAT noted that the evidence presented was sufficient to permit the Tribunal to determine that the complainant’s harassment complaint was well founded and that the former ASG’s actions “created a hostile work environment” for the complainant.
What did the Secretary-General and his spokesman have to say about this?
Nothing.
Then, the third ILOAT judgment (4599) was issued on the 1st of February 2023.
The ILOAT found that the reassignment and termination processes were flawed and unlawful.
The Tribunal compensated the complainant for the adverse effects that the unlawful reassignment and termination decisions had on her career, including but not limited to stress, distress, physical exhaustion and humiliation.
On the same day, the ILOAT issued its 4th and final judgment (4600).
The ILOAT examined the complainant’s claim to consider her illness as service incurred since it was directly caused by the harassment that the ASG subjected to her.
“The Tribunal found that the organization failed to ensure a healthy work environment and to protect the complainant’s health.
In the circumstances of this case, the organization breached its duty of care to the complainant when it rejected her claim for compensation for her service-incurred illness in the face of the overwhelming evidence, including four favourable medical reports, and its failure to ensure a healthy work environment to protect her health.”
First, you are reassigned, then you are ostracized, then you are demoted, then your post is abolished, then you are redeployed and ultimately, you are terminated.
This is the story of Sima Newell.
Where are the Secretary-General and his Spokesman?
Nowhere to be seen.
The Secretary-General is the Chief Admin Officer of the United Nations.
His prerogative is to ensure that senior staff meet the highest standards of merit and accountability and that those who contravene the applicable governance norms must be held accountable.
And yet, he never does so.
The practice of the Secretary-General turning a blind eye to the misconduct of his senior staff is a grim reminder that the culture of impunity in the United Nations will continue to prevail in the name of higher political interests.
Silence in the face of the abuse of power.
Deafening silence.
Where is the former Assistant Secretary-General?
Following her controversial promotion to the Under-Secretary-General for Management post in the UN Secretariat, she has subsequently joined the International Development Law Organization Director-General (IDLO) as its new Director-General.
In between, she is busy discussing with the Pope her shared commitment to advancing #justice #ruleoflaw #genderquality and supporting the most vulnerable.
Meanwhile, ahead of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly debate, the Secretary-General briefed the reporters and delivered another outstanding quote:
“This is not a time for posturing or positioning… Action is what the world needs now… People are looking to their leaders for a way out of this mess… If we want a future of peace and prosperity based on equity and solidarity, leaders have a special responsibility to achieve compromise in designing our common future for our common good”
Indeed.
Practice what you preach, Mr. Secretary-General.
