On June 20, World Refugee Day, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health held a briefing and hearing to examine the needs of refugees in Africa.
Chair Donald Payne (D-NJ) stated, “Despite ongoing conflicts and instability in countries, such as Sudan, Somalia, Northern Uganda, Ethiopia, and their spill over effects into the region overall, Africa has moved away from war and strife towards increased stability. This is a trend that is important to recognize. That being said, of the 12 million refugees worldwide, about 3.2 million a little over 25 percent are in Africa, though the overall numbers are on a downward trend. Africa has about half of the world’s 25 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s).” Rep. Payne said that “it is imperative…to keep this issue at the forefront.”
“No one can measure the suffering that comes with being a refugee, being a stranger in a strange land, the inability of children to attend school, the frustration of parents unable to provide the basic necessities for their families, the hardships and fears that come with living in a tent or some other temporary shelter, or having no shelter at all,” said Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), adding that the Darfur refugees he visited longed for protection more than anything else.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Assistant High Commissioner for Operations Judy Cheng-Hopkins described UNHCR’s “Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming” initiative that is being implemented in 35 African countries, stating that the methodology addresses “a wide range of protection issues, including sexual exploitation of refugee girls, child labor and recruitment for military activities, discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS, and prostitution of adolescent girls. In Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, a regional project was implemented for Liberian refugees to identify adolescents at risk and provide literacy and vocational training as well as HIV/AIDS awareness. In Ghana, UNHCR facilitated the creation of a Refugee Action Committee and the development of a Peer Counselor network specialized in psychosocial support and Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) prevention. In Uganda and Zambia, female police officers were recruited to patrol refugee settlements and more refugee women groups were formed.”
Ms. Cheng-Hopkins said that nearly “ninety percent of operations in Africa adopted Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to prevent and respond to SGBV. In Kenya, better policing and distribution of firewood in camps contributed to reducing the number of incidents…In Benin and Burkina Faso, three Community Centres were established under the Strengthening Protection Capacity Project (SPCP) to host the offices of several refugee organizations, which implement SGBV and HIV/AIDS training and awareness activities.” She warned that domestic violence and sexual assaults on women are increasing in Darfur, especially for women who go out of the camps to collect firewood. Concerning HIV/AIDS services for refugees, Ms. Cheng-Hopkins said that seven countries in southern Africa had integrated refugees in national anti-retroviral therapy programs by the end of 2006. She also noted that gender parity for primary school level refugee children was achieved in most of sub-Saharan Africa.
U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) Deputy Assistant Secretary William Fitzgerald detailed PRM’s support for refugees in Africa: “Thanks to the generous support of Congress and the American people, the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) programmed more than $344 million in Fiscal Year 2006 for protection and assistance to refugees, conflict victims, internally displaced persons, and vulnerable migrants in Africa. This year FY2007 we anticipate programming at least $306 million.” Mr. Fitzgerald noted that several refugee assistance strategies have been piloted in Africa. He stated, “Some standards, such as our focus on combating gender-based violence, arose from the fact that rape and other violence against women and girls is far too common. Some arose from scandals over exploitation of refugees in West Africa and Nepal, leading to codes of conduct for all humanitarian personnel. Some arose from basic common sense such as U.S. interagency cooperation to ensure that refugees also benefit from the President’s HIV/AIDS and malaria initiatives.” PRM also has helped to implement projects under the President’s Initiative to Combat Trafficking in Persons, he said.
Anne Richard, vice president of Government Relations and Advocacy for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), outlined IRC assistance for victims of sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur: “We are one of the few implementing agencies on the ground with a focus on assistance specifically for survivors of violence against women and girls. Our staff uses a community-based approach to build and enhance local knowledge, capacity and skills to prevent violence from happening in the first place and to provide essential support to survivors. Women and girls use IRC’s psychosocial support, skills building, and referral services approximately 16,000 times a month at ten camp-based Women’s Community Centers. This program indirectly benefits over 470,000 people in North, South, and West Darfur whose female relatives receive emotional and physical support.”
Ms. Richard stated, “What is not well understood is that violence against women plays a role in every major aspect of a woman’s life affecting her physical and mental health, exposing her to HIV/AIDS, threatening her ability to work, travel, and take care of herself and her family, and potentially damaging her relationships with the society around her. The health consequences, in particular, are severe and far-reaching and include maternal and infant mortality.” She said that the IRC is collecting signatures for petitions in the U.S. and Europe calling for “greater government support for programs to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. This includes initiatives that allow survivors of sexual violence to recover their dignity, health, livelihood, and families; greater access for women and girls to education and training so they can support themselves, sustain a livelihood, and contribute to their communities; and community programs that also target men and boys so that they can begin to break the cycle of sexual violence.”
Noting that “refugees are not terrorists,” Ms. Richard said that recent U.S. anti-terrorist legislation has “affected African women who have been victims of sexual violence. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, rebel groups have broken into homes and taken residence there, during which time they raped the females of the household and also forced them to cook for them and do their laundry. The provision of such ‘assistance’ has been deemed material support to terrorists, and these refugee cases have been put on hold by DHS [Department of Homeland Security].”
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) Director of International Services Neal Porter shared the harrowing experience of a young refugee: “Captured with his parents, he saw the rebels shoot his father dead two years later. The boy and his mother tried to escape, but were caught and beaten. He was forced to watch his mother’s rape. A second escape plan was successful and they fled to a refugee camp in Guinea. Four years later, the camp was attacked and he and his mother were taken captive by rebel forces again. After receiving 12 lashes in front of her son, the mother was released and the boy was conscripted as a noncombatant. A 10-year-old child by then, he was forced to fetch water and firewood, do laundry, and to dig graves and bury corpses; some of the bodies he buried were his friends. He managed another escape into the bush where he was fortunate to join a United Nations convoy to a refugee camp in Guinea and was later reunited with his mother. A month after their reunion, his mother died.”
The plight of women refugees also was described by a Darfurian refugee, Daoud Hari, who now lives in the United States. He said that in Eastern Chad, “I met with countless women who lost their husbands and children who lost their parents in the genocide. I remember one refugee woman who fled Darfur to Chad carrying her seven-month old baby boy for a day and a half. She was crying constantly. Her baby boy was dead, killed by the Janjaweed. This woman could not believe that her baby boy was dead and did not want to bury him. Her baby boy was the last hope she had on this planet.”
Refugees International Vice President for Policy Joel Charny also testified.
