DaytonDailyNews.com

Request follows ‘Daily News’ report on volunteers

By Mei-Ling Hopgood
mhopgood@coxnews.com

WASHINGTON | The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has asked the Peace Corps to submit by Jan. 1 a report detailing how the agency handles the safety and security of its volunteers.

The move comes after Ohio's Republican Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine last month requested formal hearings on the safety of volunteers in response to publication of a Dayton Daily News series examining the issue. The newspaper reported 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, and has ignored or downplayed some volunteers' concerns.

House legislators also are expected to address the issue in legislation that aims to double the size of the Peace Corps, a spokesman said. The House has already passed President Bush's plan to raise the number of volunteers to about 14,000 over five years, particularly focusing on Muslim countries, but the Senate has yet to pass the proposal. Security issues raised in the newspaper will be dealt with further when the Senate and the House negotiate the final bill next year, said Sam Stratman, spokesman for the House International Relations Committee, and its chairman, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

"The great body of evidence suggests we're confronted with a very serious problem," Stratman said. "Within the context of the Peace Corps expansion bill, Congress will address the nagging, systemic, difficult issues involving volunteers serving overseas."

A huge spending bill now before Congress also includes new language emphasizing the importance of ensuring volunteers' safety.

During a meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations committee staff three weeks ago, Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez said the agency's most recent volunteer survey showed 99 percent of volunteers felt "very safe" or "adequately safe" where they worked and 97 percent of volunteers felt safe where they live, the committee reported in a letter to Ohio's senators. The survey had a 68 percent response rate, according to the Peace Corps.

Vasquez, who announced in October he would be resigning in mid-November but is still serving as director, also told the committee that the agency has an office of Safety and Security with a staff of 80, a 24-hour security officer in every country and a situation room in Washington, D.C., to coordinate evacuations and emergencies.

DeWine and Voinovich said they will continue to press for hearings on the matter.

Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Joseph Biden, D-Del., noted in their letter to the Ohio senators that the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, reported a number of safety problems in 2002. The report says the Peace Corps' implementation of its safety and security framework was "uneven in developing safe and secure housing and work sites, responding to volunteer concerns and planning for emergencies — posing potential risks to volunteers."

In a Nov. 12 letter to the Peace Corps, Lugar asked the agency to submit a report explaining:

• How the Peace Corps' new safety and security office operates and the amount of funds budgeted toward volunteer safety.

• Whether the agency has implemented recommendations made by the GAO to improve safety and security.

• How it conducts its training and programming to minimize risks and include methods of communication and any value to posting volunteers together.

• Results of surveys the agency has conducted to determine the views of volunteers about their safety.

• An overview of the Peace Corps' relationships with other federal agencies, such as the State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigations, in prevention and response to assaults on volunteers.

"The world has changed considerably since the Peace Corps was started in 1961," wrote Lugar, chairman of the committee. "Given the current global security situation, are the risks too high for American volunteers to serve in many of the countries where the Peace Corps presently operates? Can sufficient safety and security measures be adopted to adequately protect volunteers and maintain the core mission and value of the Peace Corps?"

Peace Corps spokeswoman Barbara Daly said the agency "looks forward to responding to the questions" from the senators.

[From the Dayton Daily News: 11.26.2003]