Rights in Crisis
It is often the women, the elderly, the children, and the sick – people who experience discrimination even in normal circumstances – who are most at risk of deprivation and violence during conflict and displacement. Violence against women in war is all too common.
In refugee camps women and children have suffered widespread sexual violence. Girls frequently endure physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, in addition to heavy workloads both inside and outside the home. Forced labour and forced recruitment into armed conflict, often involving children, is a daily threat.
There is also a disproportionate impact of conflicts and disaster on the poorest people, 70% of whom are women. There is also a lack of support to women in their significant roles as leaders in responding to crisis, including in peacekeeping and reconstruction.
In order to change this trend the international community must prosecute people committing rape or other crimes against women in times of war. Women also need to be actively involved in the design and targeting of humanitarian programme activities to ensure programmes assist in reducing their vulnerability to violence.
Fuel and water collection
Every day, millions of women and girls venture out of refugee and internally displaced persons camps, risking rape, assault, abduction, theft, exploitation or even murder. Why? To collect enough firewood and water to cook for their families or to sell to meet their basic needs. Women and girls are almost exclusively responsible for collecting cooking fuel and water.
To decrease the vulnerability of displaced women and girls to gender based violence, alternative fuel sources must be developed. Women and girls will only be truly protected, however, if they have a means of earning income other than the collection and sale of firewood. Any fuel-related initiatives must therefore be accompanied by the development of alternative income generation activities.
