(LifeSiteNews) — The globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) has been accused of having “allowed to fester” a toxic workplace culture involving sexual harassment, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal interviewed more than 80 current and former employees, some of whom served the organization as long ago as the 1980s. A cross-section of them bond over “shared trauma” in the WhatsApp group “WEFugees,” including hundreds of former employees, according to the Journal.
“It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after,” Farid Ben Amor told the Journal. Amor is a “former U.S. media executive” who worked for the WEF for more than a year before resigning in 2019.
Some complaints involve decisions the WEF is arguably within its rights to make, even if they are undesirable, unfair and poorly timed, such as firing older and pregnant women. However, others involve disturbing behavior by WEF bosses that raise questions about the moral character of some of its executives, aside from the enormous red flags raised by the WEF’s goals, including global governance and freedom-crushing initiatives such as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), as well as former leader Klaus Schwab’s praise of Communist China.
According to one complaint, a WEF boss in Davos questioned a black employee, Tiffany Hart, about her wig and “asked if he could set it on fire” while “brandishing matches.”
Another accusation was lodged against Malte Godbersen, the current head of technology and digital services, in 2010. According to the complaint, during a flu vaccination drive, he pretended to be a medical doctor when a young female staffer arrived. He proceeded to ask her medical questions and “requested that she move her body into different positions,” and responded in the affirmative when she asked if she should take her shirt off.
According to someone familiar with the incident, Jeremy Jurgens, a top official who now serves as the managing director and head of the WEF’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, laughed when he came upon the scene.
The woman thereafter complained to human resources, and Godbersen whitewashed the incident as a “joke.” The woman said that “almost immediately” after she discussed the event with HR, she began to notice that her work was “constantly criticized by her boss,” someone other than Godbersen, and she was fired within months. HR told her that she was dismissed because of her job performance and not the incident.
Godbersen was given a reprimand and his bonus was reduced, according to documents, but he remains at the WEF.
The big boss himself, Schwab – who is married – was accused of making “suggestive comments” to three women who worked closely with him in Geneva: a receptionist, a personal assistant, and a European employee. The European said that Schwab once “propped his leg up on her desk with his crotch in front of her face and told her he wished she was Hawaiian because he’d like to see her in a Hawaiian costume.”
Another employee told the Journal that he and another staffer saw Schwab “strike the crotch pose” in front of the European employee and other women.
A WEF spokesman told the Journal that the story is false, calling it “disgusting and incorrect,” and adding that Schwab wasn’t acquainted with Hawaiian costumes.
Cheryl Martin, a former U.S. Department of Energy executive who also served as a leading WEF official, said she tried to help address harassment issues while at the WEF, seeking a stronger code of conduct and encouraging staff members to report any harassment at Davos. She told the Journal that Schwab and other board members thought she was “overreacting,” and that in 2018, she was essentially demoted without explanation.
“I changed what I could, and when I realized that I was really not able to do any more, I resigned,” she said. “You lifted the rocks you could.”
In May, it was reported that Schwab intends to step down from his current position as head of the WEF before its next annual meeting in 2025 and transition to a role as non-executive chairman.
Schwab, who turned 86 in March, has been synonymous with the World Economic Forum, acting as chairman since he founded the organization in 1971. The WEF’s annual meeting in the small mountain town of Davos, Switzerland, attracts dozens of the world’s most powerful people each year, including CEOs of the largest corporations and foundations and many heads of state.
Despite officially being a non-profit organization, the WEF is exceptionally wealthy. Last year, it made nearly $500 million in revenue and had 200 million Swiss Francs in cash.
Schwab became well-known worldwide during the COVID crisis in 2020 when he called for a Great Reset, a globalist plan to reshape the world. He is a proponent of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, a technocratic, transhumanist agenda that includes genetically editing human beings and merging humans with computers.
Schwab and the WEF’s influence go far beyond providing theoretical ideas to world leaders. In an address at Harvard University in 2017, Schwab bragged about how the WEF “penetrate(s) the cabinets” of governments around the world, with major politicians being alumni of the WEF’s “Young Global Leader” program. Some of the most prominent figures from the program include Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emanuel Macron, and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden.
“More (than) half of this (Trudeau’s) cabinet are actually young global leaders of the World Economic Forum,” Schwab proudly announced.