NGO expresses concern for neglected "lost girls"

The nongovernmental organisation Refugees International on Tuesday expressed concern that the US refugee resettlement programme for the so-called "lost boys of Sudan" had not been matched by an equal effort on behalf of Sudanese refugee girls by the UN refugee agency and the US administration. The NGO said the rationale given for what it called the "neglect" of the girls was that "since these girls had been placed in Sudanese homes, they must be assimilating smoothly into the community". However, it contended that life for many of the fostered girls was difficult, with many used as domestic servants and prevented from attending school. "Those who do attend miss many days a month, because they have to gather wood and water, or participate in food distributions [in the camp]," Refugees International added. Perhaps more importantly, it suggested, girls bring the possibility of a bride price [the money or property brought by a man to his bride, or bride's family, at marriage] to foster parents, and this had regularly led to the de facto abduction of girls placed with foster families. The Sudanese minors who constitute the so-called lost boys and girls arrived in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya between 1992 and 1994, having first fled the Sudanese civil war to Ethiopia in 1987, and having again been targeted and chased from there in 1991, according to the NGO. They originally numbered between 17,000 and 25,000, but fewer than 11,000 arrived in Kakuma, it said. Since 2000, with their designation as "a priority caseload" for refugee resettlement in the US, that country had received 3,276 Sudanese boys from this group, but only 89 girls, Refugee International stated. It said the "lost girls" had experienced many of the same traumatic experiences as the boys - losing their parents, siblings and homes - but culturally could not be grouped to live by themselves - as the boys could - and were instead taken into the households of members of their communities, mostly from the same clans. "We girls were not put into groups like the boys. If we had been put into groups, we might have been attacked. We are now in the community, and nobody knows where we are," Refugees International quoted one of the girls in Kakuma as saying. "The reality is that these lost girls have been forgotten twice - upon arrival at Kakuma Refugee Camp, and again when the US refugee resettlement programme was started," according to Refugees International. The US and the UN refugee agency still had the opportunity to make the resettlement programme more available to girls - as well as boys - who had endured untold atrocities, and to give them a new start in a third country, it said. "We must not let these 'lost girls' be forgotten a third time," it added. The Sudanese refugee girls, when they first arrived in Kakuma, represented only a small number of the youths concerned, but they had their cases heard, after which many were placed in foster homes in what was considered a culturally appropriate move, according to an official from the UN refugee agency. In terms of numbers, the vast majority of the youths were boys, and the resettlement of only 89 girls - compared to 3,276 boys - had to be seen in proportional terms, the official told IRIN. More boys than girls were chosen for the resettlement programme at least partly because they were "more visible" on their arrival in Kakuma, according to other humanitarian sources. While the boys were living in "group care" situations, and were easily identifiable within the general camp population, it was culturally unacceptable for the girls to be grouped together. The girls were generally fostered within the community, and were therefore harder for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to isolate and address, especially where foster families chose to keep them from the best-interest determination process in the hope of getting bride price when the girls married, officials added. There was now a greater interest in getting the girls resettled - not least from the US government - but it was still important to establish and sustain greater momentum to this end, sources told IRIN. In the short term, there were perhaps between 500 and 1,000-plus "lost girls" in Kakuma from the original 1992 caseload from Ethiopia - some over 18 years old, unmarried and still in foster care; but there were also "a lot more who arrived more recently, and may be in equally difficult personal situations, that should also be considered and have their cases [for resettlement] considered", the sources added. In that light, Refugees International has recommended that the US government and UNHCR work together to conduct "best-interest" interviews with refugees to determine the cases to be resettled in the US, "with emphasis on finding the most needy, but with particular emphasis on unaccompanied females". This process should he hastened so that more girls were not married off for bride price while their cases were being heard, it said. The "lost girls" had been neglected, "and the time has come to redress this injustice", Refugees International added.