Women’s rights defenders “lack protection”

The NGO Refugees International last week expressed concern about the high incidence of violence against women in refugee camps in Tanzania, but on Monday lamented what it called inadequate protection and support for counsellors - generally refugees themselves - working to prevent violence between men and women. Of seven counsellors working on a Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) prevention and mitigation programme in one camp, all had been publicly threatened with physical violence or death, and three had been physically assaulted, it stated. Despite broad-based community support, the small number of counsellors vis-a-vis camp residents, and the absence of adequate systems to support them and assure their safety, made it all too easy to target them for violence, it added.

Violence was commonplace among the Burundian and Congolese refugees in Tanzanian camps, with SGBV supervisors estimating that domestic violence occurred in perhaps 90 percent of homes, Refugees International reported. Mosy such instances went unreported, yet domestic violence still made up over 80 percent of the caseload for counsellors, it said.
Rape and attempted rape were second in terms of caseload, despite many going unreported, while rapes of girls and minors under 10 had increased drastically, it added. Despite official policies on the promotion of women’s rights and their protection from violence, “on the ground support for [counselling] staff or survivors of violence is limited, and at times not accessible,” the NGO stated. Lack of understanding of the most basic lessons of domestic violence and women’s human rights was often coupled with inadequate protection of those working to promote women’s rights, it added. [for more details, and recommendations, go to:
http://www.refintl.org/]