OVER the past few days, many of my constituents in Oxford East have contacted me about current developments at Oxfam.

I have done everything I can to try to make sure that their voices and experiences are heard in the public debate about the future for Oxfam and international aid.

About 900 people work for Oxfam in the UK, including many at Oxfam House in Cowley.

Many more Oxford people have worked for Oxfam in the past, or work for other independent charities or as aid consultants and contractors.

And of course this is added to by the legions of local residents who volunteer for international development charities in charity shops and elsewhere – as I have done for Oxfam.

There has been one constant message from all the communications I have received: widespread revulsion at the behaviour of some Oxfam staff in Haiti.

Indeed one constituent described this behaviour as ‘wicked’, echoing the words of the head of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, when she said that what 'happened in Haiti was a few privileged men abusing the very people they were supposed to protect – using the power they had from Oxfam to abuse powerless women'.

That disgust is born, for many, out of first-hand experience of the desperation of people who have been hit by natural disasters or conflict, and who must have access to aid if they are to survive.

It is a cruel irony that Oxfam, and many of its staff – including many living here in Oxford – have been some of the strongest fighters for the rights of women and girls in crisis-hit nations.

Many of my constituents have also said to me that they accept that change came too late – an acknowledgement that has also come from the leadership of Oxfam.

Unlike many other scandal-hit organisations, Oxfam did act (albeit belatedly), before the sanction of public opinion was meted out.

Indeed, as I have raised in Parliament, the measures Oxfam has taken to safeguard child safety in its shops go beyond what many similar organisations have adopted.

The Government should now act to close the legal loophole which means that supervisors in charity shops are only record checked where a charity signs up to doing this itself, rather than as a matter of course.

It should also work to speed up the process of record-checking, which can take far longer than the advertised two-month period.

We also need our government and bodies like the Charity Commission to take a long, hard look at whether their procedures are in order.

I know that Andrew Smith, my predecessor as MP for Oxford East, took up a number of issues on behalf of a whistleblower about changes needing to be made around safeguarding in charity shops and on aid missions.

That was back in 2015. But until now, nothing changed in either the government’s or the Charity Commission’s procedures.

Finally, we need to guard against inappropriate lessons being drawn from what happened.

Many of my constituents have expressed their concern that the developments at Oxfam have been manipulated to argue against international aid.

When I and other MPs raised this worry with the Secretary of State for International Development, she said that she was not aware of anyone trying to ‘weaponise’ the scandal for political ends.

This will not reassure many of my constituents worried about the case for international aid being undermined.

In some of the poorest, and most dangerous, places on earth, staff, funds, expertise and materials from Oxfam, whether paid for by governments or ordinary people’s donations, are making a huge difference.

In fact last year the charity supported over eight million people living in crisis-hit countries.

It would be a tragedy if some of the most vulnerable people on earth ended up suffering as a result of this scandal.

What happened at Oxfam needs to be considered alongside the many other recent revelations of abuse.

In every case, individuals in positions of power used their high status to harm women or girls – whether we are speaking about the film industry, the House of Commons or now the aid sector.

New procedures have been put in place in many cases, such as independent hotlines for people experiencing harassment or abuse, and independent mechanisms to take action against abusers.

But one of the most important things that needs to change everywhere is the culture that led to abusers thinking that they could get away with it.

In the same way that the ‘zero tolerance’ campaign started to change attitudes about domestic violence in the early 1990s, current developments must be a wake-up call.

We all need to be ready and willing to act if we see someone being subjected to sexual harassment, violence or abuse- however powerful their abuser is.