wfn.org | WCC - Refugee women talk

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Feature, Feat-01-17
For Immediate Use
21 September 2001

Refugee women talk
Elizabeth Ferris

Mary is a widow with seven children, but she doesn't know where
two of her children are.  She is a refugee from Sierra Leone - a
victim of that country's brutal violence.  "In 1998, we ran away
from our town in Bo," Mary recalls.  "A group of rebels caught us
and murdered my husband. They made me take off all my clothes and
lie on the ground.  I was sure they were going to kill me.  But
one of the rebels was a boy from my village, and he told the
others to leave me alone.  Later, my son found me.  Like many
refugees who were running away, he had been wearing all of his
clothes, so he was able to give me something to cover myself.  We
made it to Guinea, where we lived in a refugee camp."   

Mary from Sierra Leone, along with 45 other refugee women, has
come to Geneva at the invitation of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the occasion of the first
World Refugee Day - 20 June.  It is the first time that refugee
women - from camps, urban areas and internally displaced persons
- have come together on a global level to share their experiences
and to chart recommended actions for UNHCR.  The World Council of
Churches (WCC) is one of only three international
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (along with the Women's
Commission on Refugee Women and Children, and the World Young
Women's Christian Association (YWCA)) invited to participate in
this meeting.   

The refugee women are strong and passionate.  They seize the
opportunity to tell others what is really happening in refugee
camps around the world.  Unlike other meetings where refugees
occasionally participate, most of these women have never
travelled out of their country... except to flee across a border.
 Formal interpretation is offered in four languages and informal
interpretation provided in several others to enable the women to
talk to each other.  
 
It is an intense and powerful meeting.  Afghan, Chechen,
Burundian, Colombian and many other women are describing their
own lives.  Many, like Mary, tell of pain and suffering.  

"I lost everything, everything when I had to leave my home - my
husband, our business, our home, everything ," Mary laments. 
"Then on September 9, the president of Guinea told his people to
drive the refugees out of the country and the attacks began. 
Refugees in cities were rounded up, beaten and killed.  People
attacked the refugee camps.  You can't imagine how terrifying it
was.  We were so scared.    

"A few months ago, UNHCR moved us all to another, new, camp
further from the border.  Most of the refugees had to live in
huts with other families.  But I wanted to keep my family
together.  When children are with lots of other people, they can
learn bad things.   

"Usually it's the man who builds the hut, but my children and I
worked very hard to make bricks and build our tiny hut.  It's
very small and we only have one mat.  The dirt floor isn't
sanitary and people get sick.  We only have one blanket, so my
children use one of my dresses for cover at night.  I don't know
where two of my children are: a 21-year-old boy and a 16-year-old
girl.  I don't know where they are, maybe in another camp, maybe
back in Sierra Leone.  It's so sad.  I can't sleep at night
worrying about them...  
 
"Our biggest problem right now is food.  We get 13.5 kilos of
bulgur wheat.  That's supposed to last 45 days, but sometimes it
doesn't come for 55 or 60 days.  Everyone is so hungry.  You have
to be strong to get your food.  If you're not strong, the men and
boys will take it from you.  We used to grow some vegetables in
the other camp, but it will take time to grow things in this new
camp.  I wish we had rice.  The women turn to prostitution when
they can't feed their children and when their husbands find out,
they beat them.  It would work much better if the women had the
ration cards.  Usually they give them to the men as head of the
family.  But sometimes the men trade the food for cigarettes or
alcohol.  Then it's really bad for the family," Mary explains.  

Other women tell similar stories of flight, and death, and
persecution, and separated families, and lost opportunities.  But
there are also stories of hope.  "In Afghanistan," a refugee
woman explains, "there are no institutions which train women
teachers, doctors or nurses.  Since Afghan women are prohibited
from seeing male doctors or being taught by male teachers, this
means that in a few years, women and girls will have no access to
health care or education.  But in the refugee camps, we're
training Afghan refugee women.  These women are the hope of
Afghanistan.  We are the future of our country."  

Pioneer work

The WCC is participating in this UNHCR meeting in recognition of
its leadership role in putting refugee women's issues on the
international agenda.  In 1988, together with the World YWCA and
other NGOs, the WCC organized a first consultation on refugee
women.  A pioneering initiative, the meeting brought together 150
participants from 40 countries, 35% of whom were refugee women
themselves.  Many of the recommendations from that conference
have been implemented.  Policies and guidelines have been
developed by UNHCR, training materials developed and staff hired
to focus on gender questions.   

I* remind participants that fifteen years ago no one wanted to
hear about refugee women.  UNHCR officials and governments looked
at us as if we were crazy for suggesting that refugee women had
particular needs and resources which must be recognized.   

So much has happened since then, I tell them.  For example, many
governments recognize that women asylum-seekers need to talk to
women officials about experiences of sexual assault.  Programmes
are targeting women for income-generating projects, and gender
concerns have become mainstream in many organizations.  But as
long as women are still raped while searching for firewood and
families go hungry because the man with the ration card needs
cigarettes, there is much work to be done."  
 
The testimonies at the June 2001 meeting in Geneva confirm that
much remains to be done.  Women continue to suffer physical
violence in flight, in camps and in their families.  "Sometimes
our men have nothing to do in the camps," one Burundian woman
says.  "They used to support their families, to protect their
families, but now they feel useless.  Domestic violence often
comes from this change in gender roles."  Another woman explains
that in Dadaab camp in Kenya, the women must walk long hours in
search of firewood and are often assaulted or raped while doing
so.  "We could buy firewood, if we had some money," she says. 
"We could start small businesses to make the money, but we have
nothing - no capital - to even get started."  

Meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers, a
17-year old Ethiopian refugee woman reflects the concerns of many
when she tells him of the burning need for education for
refugees.  "Our children need schools," she pleads.  "We want a
simple straightforward answer from you.  We want you to say yes,
you will make education available to refugees."  In response, the
high commissioner picks up the microphone and says simply:  "Yes.
I will do that.  Yes."   

Budget cuts

But many UNHCR programmes are threatened by a recent round of
budget reductions.  

"Our food rations have been cut," a refugee woman from Tanzania
sighs.  "So have ours," an Afghan woman in Pakistan replies. 
"And ours too"...  "Ours too."  The impact of UNHCR's budget
reductions is evident in the stories of refugee women from every
corner of the globe.   

When food rations are reduced, people go hungry.  When children
have nothing to eat, their mothers turn to prostitution.  The
relationship is clear, straightforward, direct.  No money to buy
firewood, and women have to walk further to find it.  Too often
they are assaulted or raped on their way.  "We used to get soap,"
one woman says, "but that's now been cut."  "We had hoped to have
schools," another says, "but UNHCR doesn't have the money to pay
teachers."  The stories go on and on.  

In the UNHCR corridors, there is talk about which programmes
will be affected by the budget reductions, how office X is
fighting to have its reductions lessened.  "Originally they
wanted to cut my office's budget by 40%" one official smiles,
"but I managed to hold it to 18%."  UNHCR is reportedly providing
generous retirement packages to people aged 53 and older to
reduce staff costs.  It is sad when a person who has worked with
UNHCR all his or her life is forced to retire at 53.  But it's
much sadder when refugee mothers see their children go hungry.  

"My son is 10 years old and all he's known is war," an Angolan
mother laments.  "What kind of childhood is it when all he's
known is fighting and running away?"  The woman smiles ironically
and continues: "Actually I'm 35 years old and all I've known my
whole life is war.  I'm from Ovambo but came to Luanda, with many
other displaced people, because of the war.  And everything's so
crowded.  We have five people in one room.  I'm looking after my
nieces and nephews like everyone else in the country.  My mother
died of thrombosis last week.  She died because there's no
medicine."   

There are so many stories of need, of suffering, of pain.  It
seems incredible that UNHCR's budget is being cut because rich
countries don't want to pay, because they're tired of paying for
relief to victims of wars that drag on and on.  But they couldn't
be any more tired of war and suffering than the women at this
meeting.  
  
*Elizabeth Ferris is programme executive in the WCC
International Relations Team.

For further information, please contact Karin Achtelstetter,
Media Relations Officer, Tel:  (+41.22) 791.61.53,  Mobile: 
(+41) 79.284.52.12

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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