António Guterres’ role questioned in UN
harassment case
Secretary-general’s office was aware of complaints
before the appointment of first-ever tech envoy.
BY MELISSA HEIKKILÄ
May 19,
2021 9:54 pm
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It was just
five days after Fabrizio Hochschild Drummond won a major appointment to be the
United Nations’ first technology envoy that he was placed on paid leave,
pending an investigation into workplace harassment allegations against him.
U.N.
Secretary-General António Guterres said through his spokesperson that the first
he learned of the allegations was after he had already awarded Hochschild his
promotion.
But it
wasn’t the first that his own staff knew of the allegations against Hochschild.
A POLITICO
investigation into the case shows that at least one member of Guterres’ senior
staff was aware that formal complaints were about to be lodged against
Hochschild by one of his former female subordinates — more than a month before
his promotion occurred.
In an email
reviewed by POLITICO, the former Hochschild staff member sought advice from a
member of Guterres’ chef de cabinet’s office about how to proceed with her
complaint.
That
complaint sheds light on the circumstances leading up to the investigation into
Hochschild over allegations of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment
and abuse of authority, according to documents reviewed by POLITICO.
The inquiry
into Hochschild was first reported when he was suspended on January 27.
POLITICO’s reporting, which includes extensive interviews with five current and
former U.N. staff members, shines a light on the motivations of women who
complained about him.
In stories
from different sources that often overlap, these women described feeling
bullied by abusive language, demanding telephone calls at late-night hours and
weekends, and comments from Hochschild saying his office didn’t want women
employees to get pregnant. POLITICO has the accounts of some complainants but
does not have access to other evidence, whether corroborating or exculpatory,
that will be available to the investigators.
In emails,
Hochschild denied the allegations, but declined to comment further while the
inquiry is underway. He called the allegations “unfounded.”
POLITICO’s
reporting, meanwhile, highlights a new question: Why did Guterres proceed with
the promotion when some on his staff had a preview of the trouble that lay just
ahead?
The current
and former U.N. employees say they believe they know the answer. Top levels of
the U.N., they said, have a culture of favoritism in which influential insiders
like Hochschild advance easily and get the benefit of the doubt, while people
raising questions about improper workplace behavior aren’t listened to as
seriously as they should be.
In 2019,
one in three U.N. employees and contractors said they had been sexually
harassed in the past two years, according to a U.N. study.
Through a
spokesman, Guterres said he does take the issue seriously, and that he acted
immediately to put Hochschild on leave until the questions about his conduct
were resolved.
But the
current and former employees — who all spoke on condition of anonymity, citing
concerns about retaliation — said the time to take action had passed.
“This is
the stuff that undermines trust,” said one of the staffers who previously
worked under Hochschild and has now left the U.N. “These are the issues that
are important, ultimately, because they are so within his [Guterres’] power.”
'Toxic workplace'
Hochschild's
three-decade career inside the U.N. followed a trajectory typical of staffers
who make their reputations on high-risk assignments around the world.
Hochschild's
status in the U.N. as an under-secretary-general is analogous to that of a
government minister. He began his career in 1988 working for the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan, and in the years since has worked as a
U.N. peacekeeper and at various U.N. agencies, including the United Nations
Development Programme in Colombia and the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights in Geneva.
Before
being promoted to his most recent job, as coordinator for the U.N.’s 75th
anniversary commemorations, Hochschild worked closely with Guterres as
assistant secretary-general for strategic coordination on the 38th floor of the
U.N.'s New York City headquarters — the same floor from which Secretary-General
Guterres works. The U.N.'s announcement of his promotion to the tech role cited
his "diversified senior leadership experience, both at Headquarters and in
the field."
According
to one U.N. employee who has worked with Hochschild in the past year,
Hochschild's record in conflict zones made him an "archetypal 'hero' in
the U.N."
Having been
through "horrible stuff" had given him a "free pass" in the
organization, added the employee. Several of the U.N. insiders said the
institution covered problematic behavior due to a macho culture that persists
inside the institution despite public rhetoric about gender equality and
inclusion.
In
Hochschild's case, they said this meant being promoted despite complaints that
he created a toxic workplace in his job coordinating U.N. 75th anniversary
commemorations, known as UN75, according to the five current and former
employees, who worked under him during 2019 and 2020.
One of
them, who described Hochschild's management style as "demoralizing,"
recalled receiving texts and emails from him at midnight and on holidays for
urgent work. “He called my work useless. He told people their work was trash,"
the ex-employee said, adding that they had been expected to work while
diagnosed with COVID-19. People who worked with Hochschild said he was
meticulous about conducting aggressive conversations over the phone and never
in writing.
Two former
subordinates said Hochschild would often joke about women not being allowed to
get pregnant or married in his office. One of his female staff members was told
that her contract would not be renewed days after she announced she was
pregnant, endangering her access to health care and immigration status. The
legal dispute around her contract ended when she was offered a new role
elsewhere in the organization.
Hochshild’s
three former subordinates filed their complaints in December 2020 and early
January 2021. The U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) launched
an investigation, and interviews were conducted with the complainants in early
and mid-January, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
Then, on
January 22, in a move that caught many U.N. diplomats off-guard, Guterres
announced that he had appointed Hochschild as the U.N.'s first-ever tech envoy.
On January 27, Hochschild was placed on leave over the investigation.
Yet a
former staffer who wanted to file an official complaint about Hochschild had
contacted a member of Guterres' chef de cabinet's office on December 11 for
advice, according to the email seen by POLITICO.
"Of
late too many people working under USG [Under-Secretary-General] Hochschild are
reaching out to me seeking support on how to cope. This triggered some guilt
for me that I should have done more last year," the email read.
The
Guterres aide had replied supplying the name of a contact in the Office of
Legal Staff Assistance, the U.N.'s internal justice system.
"I
recall from our conversation that I had indicated there are avenues to staff
members seeking advice or assistance," the member of Guterres’ chef de
cabinet's office wrote in the email.
Asked
whether the secretary-general had been informed about the complaints, his
office said he only found out on January 27 and then triggered an
investigation.
Lobbying blitz
To many who
had been following the tech envoy process, Hochschild's nomination came as a
shock.
A
self-described "newcomer" to the tech portfolio, the Chilean-British
diplomat beat several high-profile, tech-savvy candidates who had been
nominated by their member countries. These included former Estonian President
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Finnish member of the European Parliament Miapetra
Kumpula-Natri, India's Amandeep Singh Gill, who ran the U.N.’s High-Level Panel
on Digital Cooperation, and Dutch politician Marietje Schaake, who's currently
international policy director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center.
None of
these candidates were interviewed, according to two former staff members and
three U.N. diplomats.
Several
diplomats said that they had expected a formal process and a longer timeline
for appointing the envoy given that internal discussions about creating the
role had started years earlier, they said. The Europeans were particularly
annoyed as they are trying to position themselves as leaders in the global tech
conversation and had seen the position as an opportunity.
Much of the
frustration around Hochschild's nomination focused on his fundraising for the
new role. Unlike other U.N. positions, funding for the tech envoy's work does
not come from the institution's overall budget, but solely from member country
donations.
The
proposal for the creation of a tech envoy came out of the U.N.’s high-level
panel and roadmap on digital cooperation. The tech envoy is charged with
implementing the secretary-general's digital agenda, focused on building
connectivity and international cooperation.
Work on the
U.N.'s tech initiatives was funded by Switzerland, China, the United Arab
Emirates, Norway, Qatar, Denmark, Finland, Denmark, the U.K., Germany and
Israel, as well as foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and the Alibaba Foundation. But more money was needed for the tech envoy's
office.
In a
project proposal sent to member countries for fundraising purposes, seen by
POLITICO and dated July 2020, the tech envoy’s office was projected to need a
total budget of $3,280,574.
Hochschild
set about raising that money and lobbying U.N. member countries personally for
the creation of the role, according to his former staffers. Money from the UN75
budget was used during the second half of 2020 to fund the salaries of
employees working to create the tech envoy's office, according to the project
proposal seen by POLITICO.
“It felt a
little bit egregious in the sense that for the last few years, what he's done
is helped create this position for himself to occupy, because we all knew that
after the commemoration of the 75th anniversary, it wasn't clear if this
gentleman had a job in the U.N. system,” said a U.N. diplomat based in Geneva.
The
technology envoy’s monthly rate is marked as $35,117 (€28,715), or $421,404
(€344,588) a year — more than double the gross annual base salary of an
under-secretary-general, which was $200,998 in 2020. By comparison, the U.S.
president makes $33,333 (€27,259) a month or $400,000 (€327,120) a year.
Civil
society groups, led by digital rights group Access Now, sent an open letter in
October 2020 asking for transparency in the tech envoy's selection process. “We
didn't hear anything back," said Laura O’Brien, the group's U.N. advocacy
officer.
In
Hochschild’s absence, his office has been run by Maria-Francesca Spatolisano,
the assistant secretary-general for policy coordination and inter-agency
affairs at the department of economic and social affairs, as well as senior
program officer Yu Ping Chan.
"The
office is continuing to mobilize funding for its work," a U.N.
spokesperson said. "The current budget covers the work through 31 December
2021."
A deep-rooted problem
Critics
argue Hochschild's case is far from isolated.
While the
U.N. claims to have a zero-tolerance approach, in 2019 one in three U.N.
employees and contractors said they had been sexually harassed in the past two
years, according to a U.N. study.
According
to the U.N.’s latest statistics, in 2020 the organization received 66
allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping and 91 allegations
about U.N. personnel outside peacekeeping. The number of cases has stayed
steady in recent years.
Purna Sen,
who was in charge of addressing workplace harassment at U.N. Women, told the
Guardian in December 2020 that she feared the organization’s efforts to tackle
sexual harassment have been “put on the back burner.”
“The system
lacks independence and there is a real problem with accounts being taken seriously.
Managers are instructed to start with the presumption of innocence but this has
translated to a starting position of distrust of those making complaints,” she
said.
In its
latest report on preventing sexual exploitation, the U.N. said it will launch a
digitized complaints platform and update its “sexual exploitation and abuse
e-learning programme” for staff.
Two former
staff members described participating in a dignity and harassment training
session led by Hochschild. “It felt tense, as much as you can feel tension on
Microsoft Teams calls,” the former staffer said.
The U.N.
spokesperson underscored ongoing efforts to combat harassment. Guterres
"strengthened the U.N.’s investigating and we now have a specialized team
of investigators, mostly women, who are focused solely on looking into
allegations of sexual harassment," the spokesperson said.
The U.N.
has a helpline for staffers to report sexual harassment, and has also adopted a
database that should prevent people who were let go because of harassment
issues by one U.N. agency to be hired by another. But staff members say these
processes are not enough because many victims fear retaliation, and allegations
take months if not years to resolve.
“It's
impossible to actually hold people to account in practice, unless you really
stick your neck out,” the former staffer said. "And most people I know who
want a job in the system just wouldn't do that."
Ryan Heath contributed reporting.
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