Refugee women and children who live in refugee camps face similar issues to those living in urban slums and rural villages. While specific problems vary, broad issues such as inequality and abuse are seen most often.
However, only less than half of the refugee population does live in refugee camps, whereas the majority live as urban refugees in metropolitan regions.
Video Refugee women and children
Women in refugee camps
Women and children in refugee camps are often hit the hardest by poverty. Women, more so than men, lack a powerful and unifying voice when it comes to their predicament in refugee camps. The life of a refugee is one of uncertainty, boredom, and fear. Women are subjected to all of these problems in addition to gender specific issues.
The concerns of women in refugee camps are varied in scope and include such issues as discrimination, sexual violence, human trafficking. Rape is often used as a weapon towards women in order to demoralize and terrorize communities and families. Sexual violence stigmatizes women and leaves them emotionally and physically destroyed. These are issues that women face on top of their responsibilities as mother, head of household, teacher, etc.
Health concerns of women
Frequently, especially in low-income countries, the health issues facing refugee women range from dehydration and diarrhea to high fevers and malaria, but also include more broad phenomena, such as gender-based violence and maternal health. All of these ailments, however, are multiplied for refugee women because of the external factors contributing to their particularly poor health. These external factors include culturally-reinforced gender inequality, limited mobility, lack of access to healthcare facilities, high population density within the refugee camps, and low levels of education.
One of the biggest concerns regarding female refugees' health is their reproductive health. In refugee situations, reproductive health often falls to the bottom of the list of priorities, primarily because in situations where healthcare is already scarce, life-saving measures are often of prime concern. Much of reproductive health is not seen as a "life or death" issue, although it clearly is. Because of the lack of healthcare infrastructure in refugee-dense areas, women often give birth without any trained medical staff present. Complications during birth can often result from a lack of healthcare assistants or medical facilities.
Another key healthcare concern is that of gender-based violence within the refugee camps. It is generally recognized that, "displacement, uprootedness, the loss of community structures, the need to exchange sex for material goods or protection all lead to distinct forms of violence, particularly sexual violence against women." Additionally, sexual violence is considered a taboo subject in many cultures, and therefore gender-based violence often goes unreported. Even if women did have the courage to report violence, often there is nowhere within the refugee camp for them to turn.
Chores of women and gender biases
Women spend a considerable amount of time every day collecting water and firewood for their families, but they are rarely ever consulted when it comes to water supply planning and management. Collecting water can take hours or even days and is often unsafe. Women spend time collecting water when they could be back at home tending to their children, generating income, or providing meals for the family. Adequate water services could be better provided if aid organi zations and those in charge of refugee camps discussed water supply issues with women. However, camps overseen by UNHCR do provide one tap stand per 80 persons that should be no farther than 200m away from households. The bigger problem is collecting the firewood.
Women often participate in agricultural tasks in order to provide for their families. However, women are often excluded from the discussion on what to plant in refugee camps. Establishing committees that include women in the agricultural planning process allows them to contribute their knowledge to the planning process. Often, women lack the tools, seeds, and land to effectively produce anything.
Aid organizations often lack gender-sensitive staff, and policies are often not comprehensive in their inclusion of women. Listening to women, working with pre-established organizations, and researching what services women actually want and need are all ways to empower women and get them involved in the governing of refugee camps. However, community leader elections in Dadaab in 2011 resulted in a total number 626 elected leaders, of whom 313 were women.
Maps Refugee women and children
Children in refugee camps
In 2010 nearly half of the people with whom the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is concerned are children. Children are often the most neglected refugees. The UNHCR has indicated five major issues of importance concerning refugee children: separation, sexual exploitation and abuse, military recruitment, education, and adolescent-specific concerns.
Separation
Separation of children from their families is a common issue that has negative consequences for the children who are separated. If separation occurs, it is important to document the separation and attempt to reunite the child with his/her family (if this is in the best interest of the child). A strong family support network is essential to the proper growth and development of children in general, but especially those living in refugee camps.
Sexual exploitation and abuse
There are a lot of associated dangers that come with sexual exploitation and abuse including teen pregnancy, infection with sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and traditional practices that are often harmful such as genital mutilation. The responsibility to protect these children falls on the host government, the refugee community, and other humanitarian organizations. The lack of structure in refugee camps can lead to abuse. Improving awareness of the issue (both in and out of the camp), improving access to education, and creating safe living conditions are all potential strategies to curb sexual exploitation and abuse. Sexual exploitation and abuse can be publicly addressed and dealt with through legal battles, adequate health care, psychological support, and protection of the abused.
Military recruitment
Refugee children are at an increased risk for recruitment by military forces. Often separated from their families, there is nobody to fight for a child when he/she is forcibly recruited by a military and forced to serve as a child soldier. There are several methods of recruitment: compulsory recruitment, voluntary recruitment, or forcible recruitment. Both boys and girls alike are recruited to join militaries and often fight alongside adult soldiers. However, other duties may be carried out by children such as cooking, delivering messages, or cleaning. Children enrolled in school are less likely to be recruited because it is more difficult for military forces to recruit an entire school as opposed to a single child playing alone. The UN states that children reap the benefits of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration.
Education
Education serves a variety of practical purposes in addition to gaining knowledge and skills for future endeavors. Children in schools are at a decreased risk for military recruitment, sexual violence, HIV/AIDS transmission, crime and drug use. The structure provided by education also provides a sense of normalcy for children living in refugee camps. The unstructured life of a refugee can be hard on children, and school provides children with a break from the tediousness of everyday life.
Adolescent issues
Adolescents are frequently overlooked by organizations that are providing foreign aid to refugee camps. Often if a parent is lost it is up to the oldest child to take care of the younger children, including those they are not related with, and this role frequently falls to the oldest female perceived as a mother figure. One such experience is described in the novel After the War. Adolescents would also benefit greatly from increased educational, vocational, and recreational activities in refugee camps for many of the same reasons children benefit from these opportunities.
Aid agencies
Numerous Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations work to advocate on behalf of refugee women and children.
The International Rescue Committeeserves as an advocate for women to foreign governments to pass laws concerning the health and well-being of refugee women. They also educate men and boys to change the culture of violence towards women.
See also
- Refugee children
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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