Women without men vulnerable in South Sudan's refugee camps
MABAN, 18 January 2013 (IRIN) - Mahasa* sits in the dust outside the hut she
built herself, holding her youngest son in her arms.
The 29-year-old mother of four knows how vulnerable she is. "I'm scared,"
she said.
Mahasa is one of many women who have fled, unaccompanied by their husbands,
to Maban County in South Sudan's Upper Nile State, escaping the fighting in
Sudan's Blue Nile State between government forces and the rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Movement-North. Mahasa's husband is still in Blue Nile,
fighting alongside the rebels.
She now lives in Doro camp, which houses more than 44,000 refugees. There,
she - like other female refugees - faces daily threats of harassment,
exploitation and violence, and the persistent fear that, as a woman, she
will be unable to provide for her family.
Harassment
The fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, which started in June
2011, has so far displaced more than 112,000 civilians to South Sudan.
Humanitarians say they were "overwhelmed" during the rainy season in the
second half of 2012, as tens of thousands of refugees, most of them women
and children, came pouring across the border from Blue Nile State. The UN
Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and its partners scrambled to meet the basic needs of
the new arrivals, who initially slept under trees and survived on fruit and
stagnant groundwater.
Now, six months later, fighting continues across the border, but the rate of
arrivals has eased and aid agencies are transitioning from emergency
response mode to meeting the longer-term needs of the refugee population.
More than 80 percent of the refugees are women and children, says Myrat
Muradov, a protection officer with UNHCR. The agency has begun to look at
the particular vulnerabilities of this group, many of whom are completely
dependent on food rations.
"Widows and pregnant women need much help," he said.
Because the camps are spread out across large areas, women often have to
walk very long distances to reach food distributions points, and then they
must carry the heavy ration bags back with them.
Mahasa, for example, walks half an hour in each direction to collect the
food she needs to feed her children.
Aid workers say that on these collection journeys, single women and the
elderly are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, sometimes being forced
to part with a portion of their ration in exchange for assistance
transporting it.
However, this is not the crime Mahasa fears most. One of the most difficult
things she and other women must do is collect firewood from the bush
surrounding the camp; not only is it hard work, it is also "dangerous," she
says, because members of the host community often approach and harass female
refugees.
"They hit us," Mahasa says. "They also take the axe from us."
<
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97159/SOUTH-SUDAN-Tensions-grow-between-refu
gees-and-host-community> Tensions between the refugees and the host
community have been mounting, largely over increasingly limited resources.
Maple*, an older woman in the camp, and Talitha*, her adult daughter,
express similar fears, reporting that both men and women from the host
community have hit them with sticks and chased them away as they tried to
collect firewood.
"The only way to get the firewood is to hide yourself in order to protect
yourself from the host community," Maple said.
Sexual violence
The issue is of growing concern for protection officers working in the four
refugees camps of Maban County. Firewood collection "exposes women to
humungous risks in terms of sexual violence," one officer working in the
camps told IRIN.
A Human Rights Watch report, released on 12 Dec 2012, documented instances
of such sexual violence and pointing out that in Jamam camp - also in Upper
Nile State - women regularly walk for an hour and a half each way to collect
firewood.
The Danish Refugee Council released a sexual and gender-based violence rapid
assessment of Doro in October 2012. "Adult women and adolescent girls
recounted cases of rape, attempted rape, sexual abuse and harassment," the
assessment states. It also found that many instances of sexual and
gender-based violence went unreported due to fears of stigmatization.
Indeed, the assessment noted that healthcare providers in Doro camp had not
had a single instance of rape reported to them since the beginning of 2012.
Support programmes launched
In an attempt to overcome the taboo against speaking about sexual violence,
UNHCR has deployed a team to Doro for three months; its mission, Muradov
says, is to disseminate information about the availability of post-rape care
and get referrals to health services going.
The agency aims to establish a sexual and gender-based violence programme
with focus groups to encourage women to talk more openly. However, the lack
of female interpreters is a major barrier to this project, so, alongside
income-generation projects, language training for women has been made a
priority for 2013.
"It's a large part of the strategy moving into a more sustainable
operation," Muradov said.
UNHCR has also launched "fuel efficiency talks", which provide training for
women across all four Upper Nile camps - Doro, Gendrassa, Jamam and Yusuf
Batil - on how to reduce the amount of firewood they use by up to 50
percent. Reducing the quantity of firewood used would alleviating some of
the tension with the host community and decreasing the number of firewood
collection trips the women have to make, lowering their exposure to
potential violence
Meanwhile, UNHCR's Muradov says the American Refugee Council is focusing on
psychosocial counselling, while Handicap International is looking at people
with special needs. Other humanitarian agencies say they are in the initial
phases of establishing income-generating projects for women, aimed at
fostering economic independence for female-headed households to protect them
from exploitation.
For now though, Mahasa remains worried. "Without a husband, I may not be
able to provide for the children," she said.
*Family names withheld
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Received on Fri Jan 18 2013 - 14:50:23 EST
