Dr Lindsay Cordery-Bruce, WCVA’s Chief Executive, argues that scrutiny is essential, but targeting people who work for voluntary organisations threatens the public debate on which democracy depends.
I have experienced some frightening things during my career in the voluntary and community sector. I have been held hostage, pinned against walls and threatened with violence. I have faced threats to burn down my home and resuscitated more people from the brink of overdose than I can count.
Those incidents happened while I was working on the frontline with people in crisis and profound distress. They should never be accepted as simply part of the job, but I understood the circumstances in which they occurred.
What feels different now is seeing charity staff being negatively targeted by small pockets of the public simply because of the work they do or the causes they support. People are being singled out online, their personal information is being circulated, and they are being left afraid for their safety.
We’ve been hearing at WCVA more and more worrying incidents across Wales, and this isn’t just being felt by us. The Charity Commission recently published a statement revealing that one in four charities are being directly affected by division in society leading to vandalism, protests and changes in the level of support for their causes.
I have never been more frightened for people working across our sector. Has this really become the cost of helping people?
SCRUTINY NOT INTIMIDATION
A healthy democracy needs scrutiny, disagreement and robust debate. Voluntary organisations that campaign, receive public and charitable funding or seek to influence policy should absolutely expect to be questioned. Their evidence should be tested, their spending should be accountable, and their decisions should be open to challenge.
But there is a clear line between holding an organisation to account and targeting the people who work for it. That line is being crossed and it’s making me mad.
WCVA has heard directly from voluntary organisations whose staff have been singled out online and whose employment information has been circulated in a hostile context. Events have been changed or cancelled because organisers could no longer be confident that staff and attendees would be safe. Incidents have been reported to the police.
DEMOCRACY WEAKENED
Behind every example is a person trying to do their job. Nobody becomes a legitimate target for intimidation by choosing to work for a charity.
I know that accountability and criticism is part of what we do and so it should be. Criticism should focus on evidence, policy, decisions and the use of public and charitable money.
When criticism develops into a sustained online campaign, involves circulating personal information or leaves people fearing for their safety, it is no longer scrutiny. It is targeting and intimidation. It needs to stop!
This does not make public debate stronger. If people become afraid to speak, organise events or contribute their expertise, voices are pushed out of our civic life and democracy is weakened. We all lose.
A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Responsibility for abuse lies with those who perpetrate it. Those of us with public platforms nevertheless have a duty to keep challenge focused on organisations and their decisions, not individual employees, and to condemn targeting clearly when it occurs.
The real test is whether we apply that principle consistently, including when those being targeted represent a cause or position with which we strongly disagree.
Violence against people in public life across the political spectrum should make all of us quicker and more consistent in rejecting dehumanisation, intimidation and threats, whoever they target.
STANDING TOGETHER
There is a practical cost too. Security, social media monitoring, legal and communications advice and additional support for staff create significant and unplanned pressures. Government and funders must recognise those pressures and be ready to help where risks are credible.
WCVA’s role is not to shield voluntary organisations from difficult questions. It is to defend the conditions in which voluntary action can thrive, and people can contribute to public life without fearing for their safety.
Over the coming weeks, we will bring together stakeholders and representatives from across the voluntary sector. We will stand in solidarity with those being targeted and discuss how we can support people and protect the conditions on which our democracy relies.
Challenge the policy. Debate the position. Test the evidence.
But stop turning the people who work for charities into targets.
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