International Rescue Committee
Sinead Murray of the International Rescue Committee sheds light on a hidden side of the Horn of Africa crisis: gender-based violence.
Dadaab, Kenya — On the outskirts of Hagadera, a refugee camp near the town of Dadaab, Somali women and their families are gathered, desperately seeking assistance after fleeing a famine and the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa region in six decades.
Newly arriving refugees from Somalia are housed in the outskirts of Dadaab. Photo credit: Edward Macharia/ IRC.
I have been working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) here for nearly a year. Looking around this arid, desolate corner of northwestern Kenya — barely 50 miles from the Somali border — it is hard to imagine that this is where more than 1,000 people a day come to look for help.
Famine has gripped headlines in recent weeks. Yet the story you might not have heard is what I consider the hidden side of this crisis –- violence against women and girls.
Two weeks ago, I sat in a thatch-roofed hut outside Hagadera speaking with a group of Somali women who had just crossed one of the most dangerous borders in the world. Their stories were alarming and disturbingly similar: Women and girls were taken from overcrowded vehicles, then robbed and raped by men with guns. Many were raped by multiple attackers, sometimes in front of their own families. Some “came to the camp naked,” one woman confided.
Each day, my IRC colleagues see a growing number of women and girls seeking help for the attacks they encountered on the road. But there are many more that don’t come forward, either out of shame and fear –- or simply because by the time they reach Dadaab, they are so exhausted and hungry that what happened to them along the way is one of many urgent concerns.
Sadly, Dadaab has not proven to be the safe haven that many women and girls had hoped for. The camps here are buckling under the pressure of a steadily increasing stream of refugees. New arrivals must wait on the outskirts, where aid agencies are trying to stretch their limited funding to meet the enormous needs all around. The result is that Dadaab simply isn’t safe for women and girls. They must walk far to get firewood and water, risking attack just to cook food for their families.
While the famine has been portrayed as a natural disaster, this crisis is not so simple. There is a complex web of conflict and insecurity in the region that has not only subjected millions of people to hunger and disease, but also to violence. And women and girls are facing the biggest risks.
This crisis couldn’t have hit at a worse time. As Congress spent the summer trying to make deeper cuts in spending, there is little funding available to go to an emergency like this. This is unfortunate because we know that with the right attention and resources, easy solutions can be put in place. Aid groups like the IRC can scale up services that help survivors recover and heal. We can construct more water points and latrines so that women and girls don’t need to risk attack in the forest. We can create safe spaces so that women and girls have a place to go for assistance and support.
The United States has been a leader in investing in women and girls, stating loudly and clearly that their needs are of primary importance to our country’s development and security goals. If there is one place where such leadership is needed today, it is in the Horn of Africa. Somali women and girls are counting on it.
For more information about the International Rescue Committee’s work in the Horn of Africa go to our Famine and Drought in the Horn website.
Sinead Murray is the International Rescue Committee’s gender-based violence program manager based in Dadaab, Kenya.
The International Rescue Committee’s Director of Communications Melissa Winkler has a stellar piece in the Huffington Post today exploring the role that women was play in rebuilding Haiti.
Excerpt below, but be sure to click through to the article for some amazing photos:
Walking through these settlements, you also can’t help but notice how many women are alone. Some were likely single moms before the earthquake. But many have probably been widowed or separated from male family members by the chaos of the situation. They tend to keep to their dwellings to care for their families and are too often overlooked or miss out on distributions of food and supplies.
My colleague Robyn Yaker (left), who is spearheading the International Rescue Committee’s programs to increase aid and security for women and girls in Haiti, tells me that in a disaster like this, women and girls are uniquely affected. “They’re exposed and that makes them more susceptible to sexual violence, and they have a harder time accessing supplies, which puts them at risk of exploitation when they try to get them.”
This why the IRC is putting women and girls at the center of its relief efforts in Haiti, to ensure that vulnerable women like Minouche feel safer, have a voice in the design and placement of latrines, showers and other facilities they want and need, and have access to vital information, supplies, and other services, including psychological and clinical care for survivors of violence. “They have a right to live their lives in a dignified way, regardless of their circumstances,” Robyn says.
When you have a minute, check out this great slide show courtesy of the International Rescue Committee who’s on the ground in Haiti doing great work, and helping the region rebuild.
Check it out here.
Freelance photographer and journalist Misha Cohen has a great piece in the Huffington Post about the International Rescue Committee’s work in Bhutan.
You can read an excerpt below, and learn more about the International Rescue Committee here.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian aid agency that assists refugees, is one of a handful of organizations that has partnered with the State Department to resettle the Bhutanese in the U.S. Uma and her family are among them.
On a snow filled day last February, Uma, now 32, with her husband Chet Nath Timsina, 39, and their 5-year-old son Kushal Timsina, reached refuge in New York City – seventeen years after Uma and Chet Nath were exiled from their homes in Bhutan.
The couple lived in a refugee camp with their family in an eight-by-fifteen foot double hut, shared by 13 people. Denied the right to work, they were unable to earn money to provide for their needs. “Education was the only wealth we could accumulate while in exile,” says Chet Nath. He and Uma received their bachelor’s degrees while there, traveling by bus to their classes in neighboring India.
After living in the camp for twelve years, limited to the sparse food rations (rice and potatoes) provided by non-profit agencies, and without the finances to support their siblings’ education, Chet Nath and Uma left the camp to find work. Although refugees are not permitted to work in Nepal, the couple found jobs as English-speaking teachers in private schools. Undetected by the authorities, they lived and worked in Nepal for five years.
Check out this excellent post from our friends at the International Rescue Committee, commemorating the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence:
MAKAMBA PROVINCE, BURUNDI – For Céline Mpitabakana and her husband, Jean, saving enough money to buy a small plot of land was always a fond but distant dream. In 1993, the couple had been forced to flee their home in Makamba Province in southern Burundi as civil war engulfed the country.
After 14 years living as refugees in neighboring Tanzania, in 2007, Céline, Jean and their six children, returned home, settling in a fishing village nestled on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Like everywhere in Burundi, the memories of crisis and turmoil remained fresh. All told, more than 200,000 people were killed and one million people displaced during Burundi’s 16-year long conflict that officially ended only this year
The Mpitabakana family faced the prospect of starting their lives over with little more than what they had brought back with them from exile. Then Céline heard about a unique project sponsored by the International Rescue Committee: a local village savings and loan association designed to offer low interest loans to members of the community. Each week members of the association gather together and agree to set aside small sums of money which are then used to make loans to members. The low percentage interest payments help the group build capital in the form of shares that are paid out after one year.
Céline initially joined her local association hoping to earn enough money to support her children. She came away with much more.
She used her “share-out” from the fund to buy the small patch of land she and her husband had always dreamed about. With the money left over she opened a small store where she sells bananas, flour and fish.
At the same time, Céline and her husband took part in discussions sponsored by the association that encouraged the couple to share more equally in household decisions and work.
“My husband started asking me more questions and now he listens to what I have to say,” Céline said. “Before he just did what he liked and wasted money on beer, which made him fight with me. Now, we make decisions together.”
Tamah Murfet, who manages the IRC’s program in Burundi, said that not only did the associations support women’s economic empowerment they also played a crucial role in encouraging women to take a bigger role in decision making.
The associations also create a strong sense of community. Members meet in each other’s homes, check in when someone misses a meeting, and contribute to an emergency fund in case someone needs extra help.
A village savings and loan association in Nyanza-Lac. Photo by Nadine Ntahuba/IRC.
For Céline, being part of an association helped ease the feelings of alienation and hopelessness she felt when she first returned home. “Now all our children are in school and our souls are calm.”
To learn more about the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and the International Rescue Committee’s work, visit theIRC.org/endviolence.
Today I came across two reports from two different organizations on the ground in Uganda that I thought would be of interest to readers.
The first is from Nothing But Nets and documents the distribution of malaria nets in Tetugu, a camp managed by the UN Refugee Agency, and a neighboring village. Lynda Commale, who authored the piece, concludes:
My hope is that after this observation trip, we can better understand the need for nets in the communities we visited. I cannot say this clearly enough — mosquito nets, treated with insecticide, are the best prevention against malaria.
The International Rescue Committee’s blog offers another account from Uganda on the work of the IRC to help hundreds of children and former child laborers go to school for the first time.
Joanne Offer writes about their work:
Today, Lakot attends primary school in Kitgum, thanks to a unique program run by the IRC called LEAP— Livelihoods, Education and Protection to End Child Labor. Across north and northeast Uganda, the IRC is paying the school fees of children and former child laborers, repairing school buildings, installing latrines, constructing new houses for teachers, and training teachers to become better instructors.
“Since the IRC started helping us, school enrollment has gone up,” said Nadutuka Daniela, the head teacher at the Loodoi Primary school in the district of Moroto. “The IRC is paying fees and has given materials—books and uniforms—that parents can’t afford. People are so happy about it.”
Each piece is definitely worth a read.
