NGO concern at violence against female refugees

Refugees International on Friday expressed concern about violence against women in Nyarugusu refugee camp in western Tanzania. “A disturbing trend in these camps in Tanzania is the amount of violent attacks on the refugee women from within their own community, and within their own homes,” the NGO stated in a field report on the work of ‘wajas’ (male and female refugee community service workers) involved in a programme to address the problem of violence between men and women. The inability of Congolese refugees in Nyarugusu to return to the Congo because of war was coupled with hand-to-mouth survival in the camps, and this kind of economic poverty was “at the base of the violence” according to one refugee worker cited by Refugees International. The agency’s Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) programme in Nyarugusu “grew as a response from the international community to the largest-perceived threat to refugee women in these camps: attacks on women and children,” it said. Rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment were commonplace, it added. “When we go to houses where the woman is beaten we are told: ‘I don’t know you, who are you. Go away. The one who I am beating is my wife. It is not your job to follow this case’,” it cited the wajas as saying.

While initial reporting of incidents of violence between men and women were very few, the increase in reporting - and use of SGBV facilities and counseling services - pointed not to a rise in violence, but to an increase in the effectiveness of the community ‘wajas’, Refugees International reported. “We volunteer because we know we will benefit our community,” it quoted one ‘waja’ as saying. “These ‘wajas’ are frontline fighters of women’s rights, responding to the greatest human rights need in their community,” the organisation added.