The management team of Amnesty International has offered to resign after a report found what it called a "toxic culture" of workplace bullying.

Seven members of the management team acknowledge that there was a climate of tension and mistrust.

The independent report found evidence of bullying, harassment, sexism and racism.

Poor handling of an effort to decentralise the organisation from its global headquarters in London and put staff in high-risk regions put workers' lives in unnecessary turmoil, the review, revealed late last month, said.

Working conditions at Amnesty were exposed in the review, launched after two staff members died by suicide last year, that found "organisational culture and management failures" were the root cause of deep staff unhappiness.

The poor management compounded job pressures for the Amnesty staff of about 2,500 who routinely work on cases of detentions, disappearances, killings, torture and other human rights abuses around the world, an external review found.

Amnesty's senior leadership team members wrote in their letter that they "take shared responsibility for the climate of tension and mistrust.

"Whilst it was never our intention to inflict pain on anyone, we must accept that this did unfortunately occur," they said in the letter. 

"Everyone of us is ready to step aside," they said.

Amnesty International Secretary-General Kumi Naidoo said he may not accept all the resignation offers but that his priority is to rebuild trust.

"These are dangerous times, and Amnesty is needed now more than ever," he wrote in an emailed statement.
 

Triggering the review were the deaths of Gaetan Mootoo, a 30-year Amnesty veteran who took his own life in Paris in May 2018,leaving a note citing work pressures, and Rosalind McGregor, a 28-year-old intern in Geneva who died by suicide in July 2018.

Efforts by the organisation to address its problems have been "ad hoc, reactive, and inconsistent," the report said, and the senior leadership team was described by staff as out-of-touch, incompetent and callous.

The leadership team members signing the letter were the senior directors of research, the secretary-general's office, global fundraising, global operations, people and services, law and policy and campaigns and communications.