Programs Gender
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.
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.
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.
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
