Combating violence against refugees

A programme to combat sexual and gender-based violence among refugees in Zambia is to be launched by the relief agency Care International at the end of November. The US Department of State-funded scheme will focus on two refugee camps - Mwange in the north and Nangweshi in the southwest - with the aim of developing a system to both address and prevent sexual violence. Care emergency coordinator Banda Petros told IRIN on Tuesday that the programme includes a training component for "stakeholders" that involves the police, medical workers, community leaders, and the refugees themselves. "There is discrimination against women and quite a number of cases of sexual harassment," Petros said. He added that refugee life placed a particular strain on gender relations, which can result in violence, with men feeling emasculated due to their dependency on aid and a perceived erosion of their authority in the household. According to Petros, among the issues that are to be examined by the year-long programme are alcohol abuse, the placement of services in the camps such as water and food distribution, and education of both male and female refugees. He acknowledged that there were cultural issues governing the "traditional" role of women that needed to be addressed, "but we'll try and put it in the context of something positive for them, rather than trying to undermine their culture". Zambia is home to more than 260,000 refugees - the largest population in southern Africa - with the majority from war-torn Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). South Africa is another important destination for asylum seekers. By April 2001, the government had received 64,341 applications over a seven-year period and had accepted 16,672 cases. Bea Abrahams of the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) told IRIN that violence and exploitation can occur at different stages, from pre-flight through to the journey itself, and finally in the place of asylum. "Refugee women do feel themselves to be particularly vulnerable. There are issues around disempowerment and a high level of domestic violence. Issues around discipline of both women and children are very high on the agenda, and then the issue of sexual violence is very big," she said. But disturbingly, what the CSVR has discovered in a survey of refugee women in South Africa, is that the levels of violence and sexual exploitation experienced by refugees at the hands of officials and ordinary South Africans is far worse than what they experienced at home. "It seems it is an accepted norm with migrant communities that part of that experience is they might have to perform sexual favours to cross the border, but what jars is the intensity of the violence in South Africa. People feel physically threatened," Abrahams said. Abrahams, who is studying issues of reproductive health among refugee populations in South Africa for UNHCR and CSVR, said among both men and women, "the first issue they all raise is the issue of xenophobia". She added that alongside the levels of everyday violence and "humiliation" experienced by refugees, "they are much more vocal about state institutions" where abuse is committed by police and government agencies. "I acknowledge that the campaign of Roll back Xenophobia" (involving UNHCR and human rights organisations in South Africa) is making inroads, but a lot more needs to be done, and the challenge needs to be put to the government," she told IRIN.