Gender

Prioritizing gender equality

Nearly 80 percent of the world’s displaced are women, children and youth. WIthin displaced settings, a family's survival often depends on a woman or girl’s ability to forage for water, food and fuel. Yet, it is while engaged in such activities that she is most likely to be exploited, abused—or even killed.

The Women’s Refugee Commission recognizes that it is vital to not only work with women and girls, but to also engage men and boys in order to make lasting improvements in the lives of those Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refers to as “the most vulnerable and violated” members of displaced populations.

Working towards age and gender equality among the displaced

Photo Credit: Georgina Cranston/Reuters

When communities are displaced, women, young people, the elderly and minorities are often marginalized. Women and girls bear enormous hardship during and after humanitarian emergencies, and especially armed conflict. They seldom get the chance to participate in decisions that directly affect their lives, which can put them at great risk of harm.

The Women’s Refugee Commission is working with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to help ensure that refugee girls, boys and women of all ages and backgrounds have a chance to participate substantively in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the agency’s positions and policies.

The “mainstreaming” of age, gender and diversity into the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) promotes equal access and opportunities for refugee women, men, girls and boys and the rights of all refugees.

Engaging men

Photo Credit: Juliet Young/Women's Refugee Commission

Achieving gender equality is not possible without changes in men's lives as well as women's. Too often men have been the missing factor in gender discussions and in the promotion of gender equality.

Men are the gatekeepers of the current gender roles—and, as such, are potential resistors to change. However, as long as systemic gender inequalities persist that deliver advantage to men over women and promise future advantage to boys over girls, men and boys have a responsibility to use their power and their resources to change the system.

Women, peace and security

Across the world, continued violence threatens the future of millions of women and their communities. While the international community largely recognizes the valuable contribution women make to conflict prevention and sustainable peacebuilding, women and gender considerations are still largely absent from the structures that make the decisions to sustain peace or engage in conflict. 

The Women's Refugee Commission is working within the United Nations, in collaboration with UN Member States and civil society organizations towards full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 and all other Security Council resolutions that address women, peace and security.

Read more on Women, Peace and Security

The Women’s Refugee Commission has examined and reported on men’s roles in gender equality work:

Engaging Men and Boys in Refugee Settings to Address Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. Download this report from our workshop in South Africa, organized in cooperation with UNHCR and Sonke Gender Justice Network. (September 2008)

The Building Safer Organization Project: Building Capacity to Investigate Sexual Abuse and Exploitation by Humanitarian Workers. (June 2006)

Displaced Women and Girls at Risk. This Women's Refugee Commission report and 4-page brief outline how to better protect displaced women and girls at high levels of risk. (February 2006)

Masculinities: Male Roles and Male Involvement in the Promotion of Gender Equality. Read our report and 6-page summary. (September 2005)

Additional Resources:

Room to Maneuver. A report on the lessons from gender mainstreaming in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. (January 2007)

Moving Up the Food Chain. A study by the Women's Refugee Commission on gender mainstreaming at the World Food Programme. (August 2006)

UNHCR Turkey Gender and Children’s Team - Five Years On. An assessment of UNHCR Turkey’s work on gender and children. (March 2006)