“I wanted to help people gain access to water,” Katie Moyer says of her motivation for taking an assignment with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Mozambique in 2016. It was her first job after earning an engineering degree from Messiah University in Pennsylvania, her home state.

During her four years with MCC, Moyer worked on seven sand dams, seconded by MCC to Conselho Cristão de Moçambique (Christian Council of Mozambique—CCM) in the city of Tete. She loved the work. Moyer, who still lives in the country—now working for Equip Mozambique—is proud of the work she was part of and the people whose lives are better today because of it.

But Moyer paid a high price. In two interviews with Canadian Mennonite, Moyer told of a troubled workplace at CCM Tete (see sidebar [below]) and alleged sexual assault by a fellow MCC worker.

She also speaks of how MCC’s response to sensitive and difficult situations failed to meet her needs. In this, her story overlaps with accounts of other former MCC workers Canadian Mennonite (CM) has reported on (“Involuntary,” July 2024).

Five months into Moyer’s term, members of the MCC team from different cities travelled to projects in various locations. On the second last day, Moyer says a male member of the group kissed her “out of nowhere.”

The next day was the last day of the trip, and according to Moyer she went to where the man was staying in the evening to confront him about the kiss before he returned home to Beira, 600 kilometres away, where he worked at the MCC office. She told the man what she needed to, and says he then proceeded to touch and kiss her. Moyer alleges, “I said ‘no, stop’ multiple times.” He continued. This went on for some time.

Given the setting and circumstances, Moyer was afraid to leave. “I was paralyzed,” she wrote later.

Moyer alleges the encounter ended with the man raping her.

She says she “disassociated” during the incident. “I didn’t feel anything,” she says. The assault left her with bruises, in addition to emotional and mental effects that surfaced later.

Canadian Mennonite has not spoken with the man, who is Mozambican and whose partner was pregnant at the time.

Moyer was raised amid what she calls fundamentalist “purity culture.” She had never kissed a boy, and she says the “abstinence-only education” she received led her to believe sex was something women endured.

“[I was] pretty naïve at the time,” she says of her early days in Mozambique.

Several days after the alleged assault, Moyer reported the incident to her supervisor, the MCC country representative. Traumatized, dazed and convinced she would lose her job for having sex outside of marriage, which was contrary to the MCC code of conduct, Moyer did not provide many details or frame the incident as assault.

The supervisor did not probe.

Moyer says she was later told of an internal investigation, but no one sought her input.

About a month after the incident, Moyer received a disciplinary letter from the MCC representative. The letter said Moyer had “voluntarily disclosed to the MCC representative that she had been in an unsafe situation with a colleague that resulted in sexual relations…. Katie made some unwise decisions which contributed to her being in this unsafe situation.”

The letter required her to refrain from contact with the man, avoid being alone in non-public settings with men and to not visit Beira during the representative’s upcoming home leave.

In response to questions about the incident, MCC said in an email: “MCC cannot lawfully discuss the details of personnel issues, either past or present. However, we can say that some past cases would likely be handled differently today.”

(For MCC’s complete response to CM, click here.)

In 2020, MCC apologized to Moyer for the disciplinary letter.

Ten days after the incident, a doctor recommended Moyer report the incident to police, but she was too afraid and confused to do so.

Moyer was diagnosed with acute stress shortly after the incident. She experienced flashbacks and depression. Other medical diagnoses followed. Moyer does not link them solely to the incident but feels it contributed. MCC provided ongoing counselling services and covered her health expenses.

Despite the problems, Moyer is gracious in speaking about her supervisor, who had a complex and demanding job.

In 2019, after learning about a new MCC complaint procedure, Moyer submitted an “incident report” about the alleged 2017 assault.

MCC sent an investigator from Canada to look into the case. Following the investigation, MCC Human Resources (HR) staff informed Moyer that the investigator concluded her complaint was “founded.” But this was based on the vague mandate the investigator been given, which, according to the letter, was to simply establish whether the man had violated MCC’s workplace harassment policy, which covers a range of behaviours.

The brief letter apologized for the disciplinary letter Moyer received in 2017. To conclude, it said that since discipline occurred at the time of the incident, MCC would not take further action.

Moyer has never been informed of what disciplinary measures the man faced. She knows he was not terminated, because she continued to see him in regular online staff meetings.

She says he was antagonistic toward her, aggressively questioning her work. He also attended team retreats, making these times intended for renewal the opposite for Moyer. She says he made comments to belittle and intimidate her.

She stopped attending her church because the man’s mother attended, and Moyer was afraid he would show up.

Moyer raised these concerns in her 2019 incident report. They receive no mention in the initial MCC letter informing Moyer of the outcome of the investigation. Moyer requested a review of the investigation findings. A team of senior MCC staff conducted the review. In the end, a letter from one of the review team members reiterated that Moyer would not be informed of the disciplinary measures taken.

The letter addressed the question of sexual assault directly, saying that “situations without verbal consent don’t necessarily mean there was sexual assault. There would need to be a process before any conclusions could be made.”

In a subsequent email to Moyer, the director of HR for MCC U.S. clarified that a further process would be a legal action by Moyer in Mozambique and/or Pennsylvania, and that, “two different attorneys indicated that your own descriptions of your actions during the original incident would likely point to consent in the eyes of either court system.”

“That was shocking to me,” says Moyer. “Their response just made it seem like I should stop being a nuisance…. At that point I was pretty much done.” Moyer, who was not willing to pursue legal action, saw no further avenue of recourse.

In a seeming turnaround since 2020, MCC told CM in a recent email, “The criminal courts assess evidence under a specific legal standard. Even if a lawyer were to advise that the evidence under that standard would likely not lead to a conviction on a criminal charge, this changes nothing about MCC’s responsibilities to such a person.”

Carol Penner makes a similar point. She serves as director of Theological Studies at Conrad Grebel University College. Her doctoral work related to violence against women, and her continued research in the field included co-editing the 2022 book Resistance: Confronting Violence, Power, and Abuse within Peace Churches.

Penner says that in a workplace investigation, what matters is “the balance of probabilities,” not a lawyer’s assessment of what would happen in criminal case, where the bar is higher and prosecutions of sexual assault are notoriously elusive.

While Penner says she cannot comment on the specifics of Moyer’s case without seeing the investigator’s report, she asks: “What were the exact findings of the investigation? Did they find that sexual assault likely occurred?” A complainant deserves to know the specific findings.

In Moyer’s case, MCC never clearly stated whether they believed her accusation of rape.

“If they had believed me, then things should have been handled very differently,” Moyer says. At times, she felt MCC defaulted to recommending counseling instead of also taking concrete steps.

Penner says that when sexual assault occurs, it should be grounds for dismissal. Moyer feels the man should have been terminated.

MCC did not respond to questions about whether the man in question still works for MCC or what disciplinary steps he faced.

Moyer concluded a four-year term with MCC in 2020. She says she had “mostly moved on,” and indeed her tone bears little bitterness, but when she heard of other former MCC workers speaking publicly about MCC’s handling of difficult situations, she “saw a need for broader accountability.”

She is not seeking personal gain but would like to see changes in MCC. Those would include:

• “a dedication to reconciliation and peacemaking” that involves “real consequences” for serious misconduct and does not turn a blind eye;

• yearly training on prevention of sexual exploitation and assault for all MCC staff and partners that receive MCC funds;

• victim-survivors informed of disciplinary measures related to their case; and

• an online “dashboard” or other public platform that shows the number of misconduct cases reported, open, closed and disciplinary measures taken. The World Health Organization is one organization with such a dashboard.

“I don’t think that MCC as a whole is necessarily bad; they just need to change how they operate,” Moyer says, noting that she would not rule out working for MCC again, assuming changes were made to ensure safety.

MCC says changes are happening in the organization. Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment training is now “required for all staff.”

Regarding a “dashboard,” MCC said the organization will be in a “better position to talk about follow-up steps once our internal investigation into a current complaint and litigation [in relation to John Clarke and Anicka Fast] are complete.”

As for informing complainants of consequences for those who harmed them, MCC said, “It is standard practice for these corrective or disciplinary actions to remain confidential between HR personnel and the named person, and not shared with others, unless those actions directly impact another person.”

But in Ontario, for instance, courts have required significant disclosure of disciplinary measures. Penner says it is normal for complainants to be informed of disciplinary consequences— that’s the “industry standard,” though organizational policies differ.

MCC told CM it has “implemented major changes in [its] HR policies and processes,” since 2019. They now have a safeguarding coordinator role in the International Program department, a protection coordinator role in the HR department, a “formal process” for investigating reported concerns and policy specific to Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment. MCC is “significantly growing” its HR staffing in international settings.

Many of the concerns CM has heard from former MCC workers relate to HR culture, and some relate to incidents since 2019.

MCC says it is also “exploring the creation of a third-party listening space for those with concerns, similar to the Office of an Ombudsperson.”

In some ways, the case of Moyer is different than the cases of former MCC workers previously reported by CM. When asked what commonality she sees, she cites: “interactions with HR, not feeling heard, general lack of care for service workers, lack of institutional support, [and] when things do happen, there’s not an appropriate response.”

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[Sidebar:]

Response to a fraught partnership

While Katie Moyer was dealing with the fallout of an alleged sexual assault, she and her colleagues were also enduring turmoil in the office of CCM Tete, the MCC partner she worked for. Melissa Wilson, who came on as MCC country co-representative part-way through Moyer’s term, told CM about what she says was a history of serious concerns about labour law violations, mismanagement and a dysfunctional work environment at CCM Tete. Three other sources with direct knowledge of the situation attested to serious problems at CCM Tete.

Moyer was the only ex-pat on the staff of about 20 people at the organization, which received significant funding from Canadian Foodgrains Bank, administered through MCC.

Wilson heard from numerous CCM Tete employees who expressed serious concerns about the organization. At one point, after two senior CCM Tete personnel loudly berated Moyer for an extended time—a practice not uncommon in the office—Wilson and her co-representative pulled Moyer out of the office to work remotely.

In 2019, Moyer filed two complaints with MCC about CCM Tete. MCC found that her complaint of sexual harassment by a CCM superior, who made inappropriate comments and shared explicit video, was founded. Her complaint about aggressive behaviour by the head of CCM Tete was deemed partially founded. MCC indicated to Moyer that it had recommended corrective measures but would not disclose those to her.

Troubles at CCM Tete were such that Wilson says another major funder pulled its support. She says MCC was also close to suspending funding after seeking numerous rememdies.

But then, Wilson says, MCC decision-makers outside the country changed course abruptly, directing Wilson and her co-representative to continue the relationship with the head of CCM Tete. The situation escalated. Wilson said she could not in good conscience work with the man. She and the other representative offered to work with CCM Tete through an intermediary.

MCC fired the co-representatives for “insubordination.” In the end, Wilson says, decisions were made out-of-country with the three people closest to the work not included.

Moyer, who appreciated Wilson’s support, completed her term despite it all.

MCC still works with CCM Tete.

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Related Content:

– “Involuntary: Terminated MCC workers call for accountability and change”

–“Involuntary: Behind the scenes”

–“MCC executive directors respond to concerns of former workers”

– MCC’s complete response to CM’s questions (posted September 20, 2024)