DaytonDailyNews.com

'Daily News' report prompts requests

By Mei-Ling Hopgood
mhopgood@coxnews.com

WASHINGTON | Ohio's two senators have called for investigative hearings on the Peace Corps' handling of the safety and security of its volunteers.

Republican senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich delivered letters Wednesday to leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Appropriations Committee requesting hearings in response to a Dayton Daily News series examining the safety of volunteers. The report found that the agency has put many volunteers in danger by sending them to live alone in risky areas without adequate housing, supervision or a job that keeps them busy.

DeWine and Voinovich wrote, "While we recognize that the majority of the 170,000 previous Peace Corps volunteers have served without incident, we feel the Daily News findings merit further congressional review. As such, we respectfully request that the Foreign Relations Committee hold an investigative hearing on this urgent matter so that the volunteers, their friends and families, and the American people can maintain confidence that the Peace Corps program is safe and secure.

"We strongly value the mission of the Peace Corps, and we believe that these problems have the potential to undermine the important work that is being done by Peace Corps volunteers, if left unchecked," the letter says.

Peace Corps officials did not return phone calls Thursday, but director Gaddi Vasquez has told the Daily News that safety is the agency's "number one priority," and that in the last 18 months the agency has added security staff, boosted its security budget and intensified training for volunteers and staff. Officials have said the agency responds to volunteers' security concerns immediately.

Foreign Relations Committee spokesman Andy Fisher said the committee has not decided whether to grant the senators request but has asked Peace Corps director Gaddi Vasquez to brief committee staff at 10:30 a.m. Monday. Additionally, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., has asked Vasquez for a separate, face-to-face meeting, Coleman's communications director Tom Steward said. Coleman is chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs, which oversees the agency.

Contact Mei-Ling Hopgood in the Washington bureau at 202-887-8328

[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.31.2003]