Mennonite Central Committee has reached a six-figure legal settlement with a couple who allege their employment as service workers in Burkina Faso was terminated without sufficient cause while they were on sick leave. The couple had raised concerns about workplace abuse.

MCC Abuse Survivors Together, or MAST, an organization formed last year to seek justice, accountability and transparency, said in a Jan. 31 release that MCC will pay Anicka Fast and John Clarke $180,000 CAD ($124,400 US). MCC neither admits nor denies wrongdoing in the settlement, which was finalized Jan. 22.

In a Feb. 5 release, MCC confirmed the settlement and said it “disputes both the facts and allegations stated by Clarke and Fast in the media.” It also said “claims of systemic abuse are unequivocally false.” It offered an apology: “MCC apologizes that our executive directors and HR staff were not always able to respond quickly or clearly enough to Clarke’s questions and concerns.”

MAST says it is aware of 52 cases of “bad endings” with MCC, in which individuals or couples have claimed harassment or abuse by MCC and have expressed the pain they feel due to isolation from communities loyal to MCC.

Clarke and Fast entered into an agreement to serve in Burkina Faso from 2020 to 2025. Canadian Mennonite reported that Fast raised concerns about human resources practices and that tensions escalated early in 2023. Later that year, after two coup d’etats in 2022, the couple went to the Netherlands for combined vacation time and stress leave.

Fast and Clarke wrote that they were fired following a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, shortly after raising concerns about workplace abuse to MCC executive directors and a board chair. MCC terminated their employment in August 2023. A few months later, the couple filed a claim to the Quebec Labour Board.

MCC does not typically disclose confidential information in personnel files but stated in its release it felt compelled to respond directly after Clarke and Fast shared their experience publicly.

MCC stated that it repeatedly encouraged the couple to seek counseling, support and medical care when they raised concerns and that it offered to accommodate their requests for changes in their duties.

“While the couple and their family were in the Netherlands, Clarke stated that he and Fast would be unwilling to be located in any country in Africa, including other politically stable countries where assistance was available,” MCC stated. “At that point, MCC indicated it was not a viable option for country representatives to serve outside their region.”

A separation package worth more than $150,000 CAD conditional on a non-disclosure and non-disparagement clause was offered at that point.

MAST shared an internal MCC document sent to all staff Jan. 23 by MCC Canada executive director Rick Cober Bauman and MCC U.S. executive director Ann Graber Hershberger. The document said MCC hired Veritas Solutions to perform an external investigation of Fast and Clarke’s complaints, which found MCC failed to properly address and investigate a claim of harassment and failed to communicate in a timely and clear fashion. The report concluded underlying claims of retaliation and criminal conduct were unfounded.

Facilitated conversations between MCC board members and the couple are being arranged by leaders from Mennonite World Conference and Mennonite Mission Network.

Fast and Clarke said in MAST’s release that they have mixed feelings about the settlement and the limited scope of MCC’s third-party investigation.

“We are glad to have gotten a measure of financial restitution from MCC, but it is disappointing that we could not easily get external validation of MCC’s wrongdoing through a court judgment, and very painful to see MCC’s ongoing lack of openness to an external investigation [of all the allegations of abuse] or to a simple admission of wrongdoing,” they said.

“Overall, we feel we have taken the best path that was open to us within the constraints of the legal system in order to move toward greater justice not just for us but also for others who have been harmed. Even as MCC has come to this agreement with us, it hurts to think of other survivors of MCC’s abusive practices who have no legal recourse.”

MAST shares further details on the organization’s website launched in January at mccabusesurvivors.org.