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Beyond Resettlement - Prospects for Health and Hope for the Forgotten Majority

Washington, DC

Briefing Hosted by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus

Statement of Darla Silva, Washington Liaison

On behalf of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, I would like to thank the members of the Human Rights Caucus for hosting this important briefing. We appreciate the opportunity to participate.

The Women’s Commission is a New York-based advocacy organization focused on improving the lives of refugee women and children around the world through research, advocacy and technical assistance.

My testimony today will highlight the protection challenges facing women and children in refugee settings, mention a few of the barriers to implementing effective protection programs, and briefly discuss two legislative solutions that address some of these problems.

Challenges Facing Refugee Women and Children:

The nature of war has changed dramatically in recent decades, putting women and children at greater risk of death, disease, displacement, and exploitation. The percentage of civilians killed and wounded as a result of hostilities has risen from five percent of all casualties at the turn of the 19th century to 65 percent during World War II and to 90 percent in more recent hostilities.

This shift has made it harder for the international community to effectively deliver humanitarian assistance and has rendered women and children even more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Of the nearly 40 million people who have been uprooted around the world, an estimated 80 percent are women and children. They are increasingly targeted by armed elements for murder, abduction, forced military conscription and gender-based violence.

Women and children in conflict settings often face heightened health risks such as increased exposure to factors (violence, acute poverty, disruption of health services) that facilitate the transmission of HIV/AIDS. They also frequently lack access to safe conditions for childbirth and emergency obstetric care. Approximately 25% of women of reproductive age in any refugee population are pregnant at one time; as with all women, 15% of them will suffer from unforeseen complications of pregnancy and childbirth. The Women’s Commission has found in numerous refugee settings that one of the major contributors to maternal mortality is lack of transportation to a facility that provides emergency obstetric care.

Faced with these challenges, United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations must provide protection and assistance. In this context, protection includes physical security, unhindered access to assistance and opportunities, as well as access to legal protections such as asylum and third country resettlement.

Barriers to Implementation of Protection Programs:

1. Lack of Resources
The lack of resources includes both financial and human resources. Traditionally, humanitarian response has focused on providing food, medical care, and shelter needs, while placing less emphasis on the safety and security of those affected by a complex humanitarian emergency. This focus on aid in the absence of concerted action to maintain security gave rise to the expression, "the well-fed dead." That is, relief efforts kept vulnerable civilians alive only to have them brutalized by war, human rights violations, and other forms of abuse. This situation is exacerbated when UNHCR does not receive sufficient response from donor governments to meet their budget needs. As a result, they must resort to “life-sustaining” activities that often do not include protection programs.

For example, in many areas, particularly in Africa, the number of UNHCR protection officers is limited and in the most remote areas the post is often left vacant for long periods. The limited presence of protection officers and other trained managerial staff of the UNHCR in camps, especially at night, increases the vulnerability of women and children to abuse by fellow camp residents and nearby local residents

Food rations in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons are often limited and unpredictable, and vulnerable women rarely have legitimate opportunities to generate income or products to barter for additional food and other supplies. When resources are low, skills training and gender-based violence prevention programs are often suspended.

Another under-funded activity in refugee settings is education. Education saves lives by providing safe spaces for young people, protecting them from physical harm and exploitation and creating an environment where young people’s concerns can be easily assessed and acted upon. Key survival messages can also be disseminated through structured education, such as for landmine safety and HIV/AIDS prevention. The failure to view education as a priority during and immediately following a conflict is damaging to children, particularly adolescents.

While there are many comprehensive guidelines on the protection of women and children in refugee settings, there still is a major gap between the rhetoric and the reality. Last year, the Women’s Commission completed an assessment of UNHCR implementation of its protection guidelines on refugee women. One of the recommendations was to strengthen the Offices of the Senior Coordinator for Refugee Women and the Senior Coordinator for Refugee Children to ensure accountability for implementation of the guidelines. Unfortunately, this recommendation was not followed. In fact, UNHCR has recently announced that it will eliminate both offices. The Women’s Commission strongly disagrees with this decision and urges UNHCR to reconsider this decision.

2. Lack of Access to Legal Protection Programs
Despite the abuses women and children face, the protections available to them often fail to adequately account for their needs. The two favored durable solutions -- local integration or voluntary return -- are in many cases not viable options for widows, orphans, or other women and children at risk of abuse because of their age or gender. Many have lost their traditional “protectors,” such as husbands, parents, or other family support. Others may actually be ostracized by their communities because they have experienced such abuses. For example, a woman or girl who has been raped may be viewed as having shamed her family and community.

For refugees, the only other possible solution is resettlement. However, women and children often do not benefit from resettlement. The internationally accepted definition of a refugee, which has been adopted by the United States, does not explicitly recognize gender and age as grounds for refugee protection, making the presentation of claims based on such issues particularly complex and challenging. Women and children, moreover, have difficulty accessing refugee determination and resettlement systems. Barriers they face include ambiguity in the way in which gender- and age-related persecution is addressed during status determinations, failure to provide gender or age sensitive interviews, and cultural considerations that make it difficult to discuss such abuses.

The U.S. refugee resettlement system does not formally allow for the resettlement of women and children at risk. To qualify, moreover, they must be found to have a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country, a requirement that does not allow for the processing of women who have protection concerns in their host country. Resettlement is also not available to women and children who are at risk of human rights abuses while still inside their country of origin; for example, there have been widely publicized cases of women in certain countries who have been sentenced to death by stoning for unsubstantiated charges of adultery. In other cases, women have been forced to marry their rapists to protect their family’s honor.

Solutions to Address Protection Problems:

1. HR 2536 - The Women and Children in Armed Conflict Protection Act of 2003
This bi-partisan legislation was introduced by Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Cass Ballenger (R-NC). The companion Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

This legislation goes a long way in filling the gap for protection programs. Specifically, the bill creates a $45 million annual “Women and Children’s Protection Fund” to support new initiatives that promote physical and psychological well-being and provide equal access to basic services for civilian women and children who are refugees, displaced, or living in conflict zones.

I was recently in West Africa and saw several instances where existing programs could be enhanced by supplementing them with protection components. For example, in refugee camps in Guinea, girls’ participation in education programs drops off significantly after 4th grade. If an education program could provide an incentive such as a monthly distribution of cooking oil for a family who keeps their girls in school, then girls’ participation may increase. It is difficult for nongovernmental organizations to get this component funded through UNHCR, but if they could tap into this new fund to pay for the incentive then the result may be that more girls stay in school.

Other potential uses include paying for female teaching assistants to increase female presence in the classroom and reduce the likelihood of exploitation of female students by male teachers. This innovative protection measure is already being implemented by the International Rescue Committee, and could be expanded and utilized in other settings.

Another strength of this legislation is to build the local capacity of communities to provide accountability for perpetrators of sexual violence. Gender-based violence programs are not just about prevention and treatment, they are also about providing accountability so there is more incentive for women to come forward and confront their abusers. The American Refugee Committee (ARC) has a unique legal program in Guinea that is working with victims of sexual violence who chose to pursue claims against their abuses through the local court system. This fund could help continue this important program and expand it to other countries as well.

2. S.1353 -The Widows and Orphans Act of 2003
This is another bipartisan legislative initiative led by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS). There is not yet a companion House bill. This legislation establishes a new, narrow category of special immigrants under Section 101(a)(27) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that would enable vulnerable women and children to be identified for expedited processing and resettlement in the United States, where they would be allowed to apply for adjustment of status to lawful permanent residence within one year

Despite the fact that 80% of the world’s refugees are women and children, in FY 2002, of the 27,100 refugees resettled to the United States only 500 were women at risk and 300 were unaccompanied refugee children.

Under this bill, government officials, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and appropriate nongovernmental organizations will be able to identify vulnerable women and children for consideration as special immigrants who can then gain permanent residence in the United States.

There are packets of information about both bills in the back of the room. You can find more information on the Women’s Commission website at www.womenscommission.org

Thank you for your consideration.