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UNIFEM

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Women, War, Peace and Displacement

 

UNIFEM Desk Review: Fuel Provision and Gender-Based Violence 

Introduction

The often cited statistic that as many as 80 per cent of displaced populations are women and children fails to convey the complete devastation that displacement visits upon women and communities. Leaving homes, property and community behind renders women vulnerable to violence, disease and food scarcity, whether they flee willingly or unwillingly. Internally displaced women face additional dangers as they are often invisible to the international community within the context of violent conflict. Camps for refugees and the internally displaced have been criticized for not addressing women’s needs and concerns in their design and procedure. Failure to account for women’s security and health needs can make a camp intended to provide refuge a dangerous and deadly place for women and girls. Fortunately, UN, governmental and civil society organizations that serve displaced women are beginning to rise to the challenge of including women and a gender perspective at every stage of policy-making and implementation.

Specific challenges faced by female displaced persons include but are not limited to:

  • Increased vulnerability to human rights abuses including sexual harassment, gender-based violence and severe sex discrimination, which are also reasons many women and girls flee their homes in the first place. more...
  • Increased risk of HIV infection as wars and conflicts often force them to flee to areas where the virus is prevalent. Women and girls are also exposed to factors that facilitate transmission when they flee, including poverty, the disruption of health services and social structure and increases in sexual violence. more...
  • The “protection gap” that results from the international aid community’s focus on providing food and shelter to the displaced while largely overlooking their security and protection concerns. more...
  • Obstacles to reintegration and repatriation in the aftermath of a conflict. Abducted women and girls are often forced to serve as sex slaves, porters or soldiers in enemy militias and are therefore seen as accomplices and rejected by the community once the conflict is resolved. more...

Key Terms

Refugee: The 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as any person who:

"... [O]wing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it." The 1967 Protocol extended the application of the Convention to the situation of "new refugees";  more... The convention's definition of "refugee" excludes gender-based persecution as a legitimate claim for asylum. more...

Internally Displaced Person (IDP): According to UNHCR, an internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who, like a refugee, has been displaced by crisis or conflict but, unlike a refugee, has not crossed an international border. In other words, IDPs are displaced within their own home countries. This can make assistance and protection much more difficult. Of the estimated 25 million IDPs around the world, “UNHCR currently helps over 5.6 million of those internally displaced, and a lively international debate is underway on how to more effectively help this group."  more...

Asylum Seeker: Often confused with the term "refugee," UNHCR defines an asylum  seeker as "a person who has left their country of origin, has applied for recognition as a refugee in another country, and is awaiting a decision on their application." more...

 

International Organizations

UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR): UNHCR, the main UN body resonsible for the well-being  of the world's  refugees,  is mandated to coordinate and lead international action on the protection of refugees and on solutions to refugee problems. For more information, please see Helping_Refugees:_An_Introduction_to_UNHCR, which outlines the basic concept, principles and activities of UNHCR or visit the UNHCR homepage here.

Amnesty International: more...

Human Rights Watch: more...

Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC): more...

Refugees International: more...

WHO: Refugee Health Page. more...

Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children: more...

 

UNIFEM Action and Analysis

UNIFEM’s work on displacement takes several forms, from policy formulation and analysis to support to women’s organizations and inter-agency processes. Examples of UNIFEM work include:

  • Supporting the All-Party Burundi Women's Peace Conference on reconstruction issues such as repatriation, resettlement and reintegration of refugees. UNIFEM collaborated with AFRICARE to support a four-month reconciliation program for women IDPs, returnees and women in Burundi .
  • Supporting increased participation of internally displaced women in peace-building. For instance, for the first time, “Women’s Public Diplomacy” meetings were held in South Ossetia and also in Abkhazia with internally displaced women from Tbilisi , Georgia , local authorities, the UN Observer Mission and CIS peacekeepers.
  • Forging relationships with other UN agencies to improve the protection of women refugees affected by the Colombian civil war.
  • Working with UN and humanitarian partners to develop guidelines to address gender-based violence in humanitarian crises, including refugee and IDP settings.

Tools & Checklists

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UN Documents

  • Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: Created by the Special Representative to the Secretary-General Francis Deng in 1998, the Guiding Principles (GPs) are the first international standard for the protection of IDPs. The GPs consist of thirty principles which define IDPs rights and the obligation of states to IDPs. Although they are not legally-binding, the GPs set out minimum standards for the well-being and empowerment of IDPs. The GPs specify that IDPs must be protected from “rape, mutilation, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and other outrages upon personal dignity, such as acts of gender-specific violence, forced prostitution and any form of indecent assault; slavery or any contemporary form of slavery, such as sale into marriage, sexual exploitation, or forced labour of children.” The GPs also say that “special attention should be paid to the health needs of women, including access to female health care providers and services, such as reproductive health care, as well as appropriate counselling for victims of sexual and other abuses.” more...

 

  • IRIN: Web Special on Refugee Return and Reintegration. more...

 

  • SC Resolution 1325: The Security Council urges member states to increase their support for gender-sensitive training programs undertaken by relevant funds and programmes, including UNHCR. The SC calls on all actors to consider the particular repatriation, resettlement and reconstruction needs of women and girls. The SC calls on all actors to respect the humanitarian nature of refugee camps and settlements and to take into account the needs of women in their design. more...

 

  • UNFPA: "The Trajectory of Life as Internally Displaced Persons In Angola" more...
  • UNHCR: An Assessment of Ten Years of Policy on Refugee Women. more...
  • UNHCR's Five Commitments to Refugee Women:
    • Develop integrated country level strategies to address sexual violence, including domestic violence, against refugee women.
    • Register refugee women individually and provide them with relevant documentationto ensure their individual security, freedom of movement and access to essential services. Refugee women and men are to participate equally in the registration process.
    • Ensure that 50 per cent of representatives in all management communities and other bodies representing refugees to UNHCR in urban, rural and camp setting are women.
    • Ensure refugee women’s direct and indirect participation in the management of food and non-food item distribution so that these goods are directly controlled by adult female household members.
    • The provision of sanitary materials to all women and girls of concern to UNHCR should become a standard practice in UNHCR’s assistance programmes. more...

 

 

  • UNHCR: Sports recreation programs for refugee children and girls. more...

 

  • UNHCR: Refugee Women photo gallery. more...

 

Independent Experts' Assessment & Recommendations

The Independent Experts' Assessment on Women, War, Peace and Displacement and the accompanying recommendations can be accessed in this archive: Displacement Archive.





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