An Open Letter to WHO: You Knew Who Her Mother Was. Why Did You Wait?

To Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO donors:

On July 11, after four months of global embarrassment and growing outrage in Bangladesh, you finally placed Saima Wazed -- your South‑East Asia regional head -- on indefinite leave.

Don’t pretend this was decisive action. It wasn’t. It was the reluctant flinch of an organisation caught looking the other way.

Let’s speak plainly: in March and January, Bangladesh’s Anti‑Corruption Commission charged Wazed with forging qualifications and misusing nearly $3 million in donor funds. Yet she stayed in post for four months while WHO fumbled with silence.

You knew exactly who she was.

You knew she was the daughter of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s disgraced and ousted prime minister. 

You knew Hasina’s regime collapsed in August 2024 after a citizen uprising against her government’s corruption and brutality. 

You knew she now faces five charges of crimes against humanity, including the 2024 student massacre that left over 1,400 dead.

 You knew about the Rooppur nuclear plant embezzlement, reportedly in the billions. You knew her government’s bank accounts were frozen, her stolen wealth laid bare.

You knew, too, about Tulip Siddiq, Hasina’s niece and a UK Labour MP, now under an arrest warrant in Bangladesh for receiving land illegally and for her links to that same nuclear scandal.

This is not ignorance. This is indulgence. And Bangladesh is watching.

In Dhaka, outrage has been pouring onto our screens for months. Young people, civil society leaders, journalists -- we all asked the same thing: how can an organisation funded by the United Nations, an institution that documented Hasina’s crimes, turn around and keep her daughter in a position of power, when her only qualification for the job was her relationship to the disgraced former PM?

Your donors -- USAID, DFID, the European Commission, the Gates Foundation -- should be asking too. Does their money now serve to shield political dynasties?

This isn’t about whether Saima Wazed is guilty or innocent. It’s about your standards, Dr Tedros. 

In 2023, WHO acted quickly when misconduct surfaced against Takeshi Kasai. Why does this family get months of indulgence? When political proximity dictates your response, silence stops being neutrality. It becomes complicity.

You cannot plead that you didn’t know. You cannot plead that you were waiting for clarity. You knew everything. And you waited anyway.

If you want to salvage even a shred of credibility:

• Act fast: any senior official facing formal legal charges must trigger an internal ethics review within 7 days -- no exceptions for powerful family names.
• Be transparent: publish who decided what -- and when. Tell us why you let her stay this long.
• Raise the bar: senior candidates from politically connected dynasties must face the strictest vetting you have ever implemented.

Protecting power over principle isn’t diplomacy. It’s decay.

And if you think Bangladeshis will quietly move on, you are mistaken. We have watched our country be looted by dynasties for decades. We will not stand by while international institutions make excuses for them too.