Internally Displaced Women
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Gender-Based Violence
Displaced
Women in Assam, IndiaViviane Dalles,
2007
Sexual and gender-based violence is
one of the most pervasive violations of the rights of women and girls during
armed conflict and displacement. It is often employed as a strategy of war by
armed actors to gain power. Women and girls are at risk of sexual and
gender-based violence in most internal displacement situations. This can include
rape, forced impregnation, forced abortion, trafficking, and sexual slavery.
While men and boys may also be affected, research indicates that sexual and
gender-based violence predominantly affects women and girls.
Despite
progress in the development of law and policy on addressing sexual and
gender-based violence in armed conflict, individual cases as well as patterns of
abuse against displaced women and girls continued to be reported during 2006. As
pointed out in a report on Uganda by a consortium of NGOs, gender-based violence
is often neglected in humanitarian programming, in spite of being one of the
most serious protection issues facing IDPs.52 Sexual violence against displaced
women and girls remains an under-reported aspect of conflict. In many countries,
displaced women and girls do not report incidents of abuse and violence to
medical and humanitarian organisations. Nevertheless, cases of sexual and
gender-based violence were reported among IDP communities in a number of
countries, particularly in the DRC, Sudan, Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines,
Iraq, Chad, Uganda, CAR, Somalia, Burma, India, Liberia, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire
and the Russian Federation.
Rape was used as a weapon of war – to punish
communities for their political allegiances, as a form of ethnic cleansing, and
to forcibly displace civilians – in countries including Colombia, the DRC and
Sudan. Armed groups engaged in acts of sexual violence to attack the values of
the community, punish or terrorise communities and individuals accused of
collaborating with enemy forces, or provide gratification for fighters. In the
DRC, various armed groups have abducted and kept as sex slaves thousands of
women to provide sexual, domestic and agricultural services.
In the DRC,
Sudan and Uganda, there were widespread reports of systematic sexual and
gender-based violence against displaced women and girls. The number of reports
of incidents of rape against internally displaced women rose sharply during 2006
in parts of the DRC. Incidents were reported more frequently along the
Kanyabayonga-Kayna road, North Kivu province, where fighting between the army
and rebel soldiers has displaced at least 70,000 people. Some 4,000 displaced
women were reported to have been raped in South Kivu.
In Darfur, girls
and women have been targeted in inter-ethnic fighting both in a deliberate
attempt to dishonour them and as a means of ethnic cleansing, particularly in
areas inhabited by displaced populations. Many victims were under 18 years of
age. In May 2006, for instance, a group of about 25 armed men in Sudan
Liberation Army uniforms threatened, beat and robbed six separate groups of
women and girls in Hajar Jalanga, in West Darfur. During the same month,
Janjaweed militia attempted to rape women and girls displaced from villages near
Kutum, in North Darfur. And in July, approximately 25 armed militias, some in
army uniforms, assaulted 20 women outside the Kalma IDP camp in Nyala, South
Darfur. Increasing numbers of rapes by displaced men of displaced women were
also reported within IDP camps in Darfur.
In Chad, members of armed
groups, including the Janjaweed, targeted displaced women and girls in attacks
on IDP sites in the eastern part of the country. UNICEF received reports that 33
women and girls from the Bildigue and Haraza tribes at the Koubigou IDP site had
been raped.
In Uganda in 2006, there continued to be cases of sexual
exploitation and sexual violence against women and girls by government and
military personnel in IDP camps. The issue worsened with an increase in the
numbers of displaced people leaving the camps for new settlement areas. A lack
of schools and health facilities in the new areas has meant that men are the fi
rst to go, leaving women and children behind in the existing camps, where they
are able to gain access to basic services but where they are also exposed to a
greater risk of gender-based violence, abuse and exploitation. In January 2006,
a Ugandan soldier was reported to have been responsible for the rape of a
17-year-old girl outside Pagal camp in Gulu district, and in February 2006 a
17-year-old soldier was arrested and charged with rape in Lira Palwo in Pader.
Patterns of sexual violence were also reported in IDP camp settings in Somalia
and Sri Lanka during the year.
Displaced
women in the Central African Repulic,
Foaleng, 2007
Poverty and a
lack of any other income-generating activity forced many internally displaced
women into prostitution and traffi cking during 2006. In Nepal, according to
local NGOs, displaced women fleeing their homes or living in IDP camps have
sometimes been forced into prostitution to survive or have fallen prey to traffi
ckers. In IDP camps in Uganda, many girls and women engage in “survival sex” to
obtain food or “transactional sex” in exchange for spending money or small
objects. Lack of access to income sources has forced displaced women to collect
firewood in the Kieni forest of Kenya, where if caught, they are subjected to
sexual abuse, severe beatings and imprisonment by forest guards. Displaced women
and girls are often exposed to sexual and gender-based violence in the course of
obtaining basic resources such as food, water and fuel for themselves and their
families. In Sudan, rapes and other forms of sexual abuse were frequently
reported when displaced women and girls had to leave camp areas to gather fi
rewood. In Liberia, displaced women have been forced to exchange sex for aid,
including food from national and international peace workers, according to a
report by Save the Children.
There were also reports that displaced women
and girls were subject to multiple forms of harassment and abuse by both
government forces and non-state actors in Nepal, India and Colombia. In Nepal,
an inter-agency mission in the east of the country received informal reports
that displaced women were subject to harassment and abuse by both government
forces and rebels. A June 2006 study by Terre des Hommes showed that displaced
girls working in carpet factories in Nepal were at high risk of abuse, including
sexual and verbal harassment. A number of women of the Hmar minority group,
living in Manipur, North India, were raped during attacks by militants that
displaced thousands of people from the area to the neighbouring state of
Mizoram. Violence against women may also increase within the family due to the
stress of displacement. A government survey in Colombia showed that almost half
of all displaced women there reported physical violence at the hands of their
partners in 2006.
Peacekeepers were also involved in sexual abuse against
displaced women and girls. In August in the DRC, the international media
reported allegations of a soldier-run prostitution ring involving girls as young
as 15 in the South Kivu area. Some of the implicated soldiers are believed to be
United Nations peacekeepers. Allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse
committed by UN peacekeepers in several countries were under investigation in
2006. In December, senior UN and NGO representatives issued a statement
addressing sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers, emphasising a zero
tolerance approach.
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National responsibility to protect
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement explicitly call on
governments to provide protection for women and girls. Provisions regarding
displaced women and girls are guided by two core concerns: to safeguard them
from gender-specifi c violence and to uphold their rights to equal access to
services and participation in assistance programmes.
But abuses against
displaced women and girls have generally been perpetrated with impunity, and a
majority of displaced women and girls did not have adequate access to physical,
legal and social protection during 2006. A number of investigations into sexual
abuse were ongoing at the international level last year, although the process is
lengthy. At the end of the year, the lead prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court said in a briefi ng to the Security Council that it had
“reasonable grounds to believe” that crimes against humanity, including rape,
had been committed in Darfur. Similar investigations have been under way in the
DRC and northern Uganda, where there have been widespread allegations of
systematic patterns of rape of displaced and other women.
Progress was
made in strengthening the legal protection afforded to displaced women who have
survived acts of sexual and gender-based violence in some conflict-affected
countries. Countries where legislation criminalising sexual violence was adopted
or amended during 2006 included Liberia and the DRC. Liberia passed a Rape
Amendment Act, and the DRC adopted a bill on sexual and gender violence as a
result of lobbying by local NGOs and the UN. The law strengthens the legal
protection available to victims of sexual violence, broadening the defi nition
of rape to include those committed with objects, a practice that has been common
in the Congolese war.
In some countries, national laws may prevent
displaced women and girls from gaining access to assistance. In post-war Bosnia
and Herzegovina, legislation related to civilian war victims, including victims
of rape, differs between the country’s two entities, which may create unequal
access to social benefi ts or support depending on the area of displacement or
return.
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Regional and international response
At the regional level, a protocol on the Prevention and Suppression
of Sexual Violence against Women and Children in the Great Lakes region of
Africa was adopted in 2006 within the framework of the International Conference
on the Great Lakes region. The protocol calls on states to take particular
measures to ensure that internally displaced women are protected. The UN and
NGOs continued to develop initiatives to address sexual and gender-based
violence in humanitarian situations during 2006, including medical and
psycho-social assistance, and legal and income-generating activities. While
advances have been made, much still has to be done to improve prevention of and
response to gender-based violence in IDP communities.
For instance, a
2006 study by the International Medical Corps on the mental health of displaced
women in South Darfur found that almost one-third of displaced women surveyed
suffered from a major depressive disorder. Almost all the women said that
counselling provided by humanitarian agencies would help them.
At the
interagency level, progress was made in the elaboration of practical guidelines
and tools to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. The creation of a
standby force of gender experts for deployment in humanitarian emergencies was
part of efforts to more effectively integrate gender issues into the UN system.
In 2006, following a comprehensive review of the extent to which humanitarian
interventions address the needs of women, girls and boys, the Inter-Agency
Standing Committee, the primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination of
humanitarian assistance, identified key gaps. Based on these, it proposed five
areas for action: developing gender equality standards; ensuring gender
expertise in emergencies; building capacity of humanitarian actors on gender
issues; using sex and age disaggregated data for decision-making; and building
partnerships for increased and more predictable gender equality programming in
crises.