The Times of London on Friday published a report with details of a leaked internal investigation of the alleged payment for sex with young women, possibly including under-age girls, by Oxfam staff in Haiti. Oxfam later denied covering up the scandal.

“As a direct result of the stories in The Times, staff members have come forward with concerns about how staff were recruited and vetted in this case,” said Caroline Thomson, chair of trustees for Oxfam GB.

“We will examine these in more detail to ensure we further strengthen the improved safeguarding, recruitment, vetting and staff management procedures that were put in place after 2011,” Thomson said in a statement.

Thomson did not mention Sunday’s report in The Observer, The Guardian’s Sunday newspaper, that alleged that the aid group also covered up allegations that staff in Chad paid for sex with young women.

Former Oxfam staff in Chad told the paper that “women believed to be prostitutes were repeatedly invited to the Oxfam team house there”, and a senior staff member was sacked for his behaviour in 2006.

The newspaper said Roland van Hauwermeiren, who later worked in post-earthquake Haiti, was head of Oxfam’s operations in Chad at the time.

It said van Hauwermeiren resigned from Oxfam in 2011, after admitting that prostitutes had visited his villa in Haiti.

In an emailed statement on Sunday, Oxfam said it would “strive to clarify as soon as possible whether the [Chad] allegations were known to us and what measures were taken.”

It promised to release the results of its investigation “publicly and transparently”.

On Saturday, Britain’s charity commission said it had written to Oxfam “as a matter of urgency to request further information regarding the events in Haiti in 2011”.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday that Oxfam and other charities could face the withdrawal of government funds if they fail to implement proper safeguarding procedures.

DPA