Women in Refugee Camps
Imagine being forced from your home because of war, finding your way to a different country, and having to live in a camp with thousands of other people in your situation. The photo on the left illustrates a small part of that struggle. Women, children, even whole families, forced to survive on pitiful resources. Often times women and children are forced to trade sex for food and supplies.*
I read two articles about women in refugee camps. The first was Living on the Edges: Afghan Women and Refugee Camp Management in Pakistan by Saba Gul Khattak (link), and the second was Abuse of Power: Sexual Exploitation of Refugee Women and Girls by Elizabeth G. Ferris (link).
Marcus and Fischer wrote about interpretive ethnography that can serve as a "cultural critique" by using two different techniques, defamiliarization by epistemological critique (going to places where conditions are supposed to be unfamiliar and revising the way we normally think so that we can better understand what is exotica, and then bringing that information back into common thought and worldview) or defamiliarization by cross-cultural juxtaposition (the comparison of an unfamiliar culture with the familiar culture, and using the unfamiliar to critique the familiar).
Both of the texts that I read seem to have been approaching defamiliarization by epistemological critique, by taking the perspective from within the camps.
In Living on the Edges the author writes about how male dominated authority was harming the female occupants through their "male-centered" mentality. The refugee registration used in Pakistan for Afghan refugees was based on families, therefore women certain women had a difficult time being recognized and allowed into the camps (unmarried women not in the care of their fathers, widowed women, women without brothers). The author writes that "often widows were forced to remarry,"** in order to have access to a camp. This is an obvious consequence of male dominated authority that doesn't take women's status seriously. It's not that they even had another category for widows or single women, but they didn't seem to think of the possibility of women entering the camp without a male head of household. Then once families found themselves in the camp, women were confined and unable to leave the camp, while the men were sent for training to fight Russian forces, so as to allow the men assurance that their women wouldn't be able to come into any contact with other men. This inability to leave the camp resulted in women being unable to work or have any access to a livelihood. In addition, many women in the refugee camps suffered from depression and trauma, but the health clinics that did exist wouldn't "provide any counseling services simply because women's primary role was conceived in terms of reproduction; they were not thought of as human beings in need of psychological support."**
In Abuse of Power, the author describes the sexual exploitation of women and children in refugee camps by "humanitarian workers who are charged with protecting and assisting refugees and the displaced."* She shows how young women especially are having to trade sex for food and material supplies, and not being able to do anything about it because those who abuse them are in positions of power over them. One girl-mother from Guinea reported, "If I tell you the name of the NGO worker I have to have sex with, he will get fired, and then how will I feed my child and myself?"* An adolescent in Liberia said, "It's difficult to escape the trap of those (NGO) people; they use the food as bait to get you to [have] sex with them."*
In both of these articles, there is an amount of defamiliarization, but it's mostly just from the descriptions of the situations the women find themselves in in the refugee camps, a situation so far from what is familiar to many Canadian-born Canadians.
Both authors are calling for social change. Elizabeth G. Ferris (Abuse of Power) is calling for change in the policies of humanitarian groups, an accountability for each worker to end the sexual abuse they have been oppressing the women and children of refugee camps in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Her call for this change is explicit. She says that, "as long as humanitarian workers control access to the necessities of life, they will be in a position where the abuse of their power is not only possible but likely. As long as the international humanitarian community is not able to mobilize sufficient resources for the people entrusted to its care, young girls will trade sex for a handful of peanuts."* Her work
Saba Gul Khattak (Living on the Edge) is calling for the recognition of women's needs in refugee camps, their need to be able to support themselves, and to have access to psychological care, and their need for status as individuals as opposed to just a reproductive figure (more of an implicit message).
While both of these articles were upsetting, Abuse of Power: Sexual Exploitation of Refugee Women and Girls broke my heart. I was horrified to read that the sexual exploitation occurring in refugee camps was at the hands of those who were supposed to be bringing aid. That abuse of power is completely unacceptable and makes me sick. Those people who have dedicated their lives to bringing aid to others in need should do so for the good of the people they aid, not for personal gain... and yet that's what is happening in some places. I wonder if all the screening processes that volunteer and humanitarian organizations have here in Canada are making a difference in this situation? To be involved with a project like those described in the articles (through a Canadian agency), each person involved must undergo background checks and child protection training... you'd think that would weed out people likely to sexually abuse... and maybe it does. The article says that "most of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) and UN humanitarian workers who were named by the children as abusers were national rather than expatriate staff."* Perhaps the kind training and background checks are different for each country, allowing some people easier access to these situations.
key concepts used: authority, power
** info/quotes from
Photo on left from
Wow. That's a horrific picture you paint of their lives.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it would be reasonable to create new camps especially for women unconnected to a man? And as for the humanitarian aid, do you think it would be possible to demand of major sponsors to require a more thorough process of weeding out the bad?
Definitely, their lives seem horrifying. The gender inequality is saddening, and the idea of trading sex for food is a terrible violation of women, its a form of forced prostitution... it needs to be stopped.
ReplyDeleteYou presented a very good summary and discussion of the articles. I learned a lot. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteFirstly you did an amazing job on your blog! It really saddens me, as much as I like to keep an open mind to cultures from around the world I also like to know that everyone is being treated equally, I understand we all get raised in a different environment where we all share different roles, but nobody should be marginalized because of that. Do you think there will ever be a day in time where defamiliarization will be a term taught in these third wold countries, and they have to write about us? would be interesting.
ReplyDelete