The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that women and children make up between 75% and 80% of war refugees and displaced persons. The concentration of women in refugee and displaced persons camps is a two-pronged issue. In the beginning, the need for security was the impetus for the women to group together. But in the absence of a peace-keeping force with a firm mandate regarding protection of civilians, as is usually the case in Africa, protection is transformed into insecurity.

Even though the majority of people in refugee and displaced persons camps are women, a patriarchal model is replicated in them and has become radicalized. In such a situation, the women are completely defenceless and deprived of all decision-making power. The social, economic and cultural bases that structure negotiations with a modicum of balance of power between men and women are totally destroyed by war. Most often, the camps reflect the disintegration of familial and social structures. The erosion of normalcy, the disappearance of the notion of parental authority, specifically maternal authority, all explain how socio-ethical codes are replaced with the only law that prevails in the camps: might makes right.

A patriarchal hegemony thrives much more easily in refugee and displaced persons camps, so that women, primarily single women (who are also referred to as “unaccompanied women” as if they were minors), are like welfare recipients in many respects. No longer producers of food, they depend on food aid, the distribution and control of which they know is based on formal and informal authority structures managed by men. Having no control of their physical safety, they must accept the conditions of those who control the camp.
The conditions of negotiation, as commonly imposed by those who control the camps (armed forces personnel, militiamen, child soldiers, UNHCR field staff and camp administrators), all contribute to the sexual exploitation of women and girls and thus to an increased risk of HIV/AIDS transmission.

The local staff of humanitarian agencies and peace-keeping forces are not innocent of this kind of abuse, as attested to by the investigation conducted by the UNHCR and Save the Children UK in the refugee camps in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. According to that investigation, which specifically pointed the finger at local male staff, the UNHCR and Save the Children denounced the widespread practice of bartering aid and humanitarian services intended for the refugees in exchange for sexual relations with girls under 18 years of age.
The poverty, promiscuity and insecurity in the camps promote prostitution and pose several challenges, namely, the extent of the women's awareness of the risks they run in having unprotected sex with several sexual partners, the very high risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, which are also vectors of HIV/AIDS, and lastly, the need for the humanitarian agencies in the camps to view the fight against HIV/AIDS as a humanitarian response.

One study conducted in the Rwandan refugee camps in Tanzania, established that the presence of sexually transmitted infections (STI) during unprotected sex increased the risk of HIV/AIDS infection from 6 to 10 times. Only 16% of men admitted having used condoms during casual sex, which would explain the presence of STIs in 60% of pregnant women covered in the study.

To curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS in the camps it was recommended that the UNHCR and its partners identify the gender-based causes of crimes of violence against women and girls committed in the camps so that prevention strategies can be developed. According to the UNHCR, the strategies should have as a common objective the adjustment or implementation of local practices and traditions to international standards of protection of the rights of women and girls, reconstruction of family and community support networks, the building of infrastructures and development of appropriate services as well as the documentation of incidents of sexual violence. To ensure that these objectives are achieved, camp personnel must receive gender-based training that emphasizes the relationship between HIV/AIDS, women's rights and rights of refugees and displaced persons. The training would allow for the development of appropriate strategies in the given context. To be able to ensure that women with HIV/AIDS receive medical care, it is essential to ensure that women's health workers provide services in the camps and are equipped with antiretroviral drugs.

* This is an extract from a publication ‘The Right to Survive:
Sexual Violence, Women and HIV/AIDS’. The full article can be found on the website of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights and Democracy) at the following address

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