15 Years of Advocacy & Action

When the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) was founded in 1989, there was little awareness of the special needs and rights of refugee women, children and adolescents. Although women and children generally make up some 80 percent of uprooted populations, they had been largely overlooked in humanitarian programs and policies. Over the next 15 years, WRC has been a consistent voice calling on the international community – the United Nations, national governments, international nongovernmental organizations – to develop and implement policies and programs to improve the lives of refugee women and children, and, importantly, to include refugee women in this process.