Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: This report documents some of the immediate
concerns of this vulnerable population. Based
on a visit to 10 of the 11 refugee camps in
Chad in January of 2005, the report highlights
the barriers to education that girls face, as
well as the conditions that put them at grave
risk of gender-based violence, including rape.
Hundreds of thousands of people from the Darfur region of Sudan have
fled the ongoing conflict there, crossing the border into the desert of
eastern Chad seeking safety. With no resolution to the conflict in sight, the
number of refugees in Chad is likely to grow.
A new report by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and
Children, "Don't Forget Us: The Education and Gender-based Violence
Protection Needs of Adolescent Girls from Darfur in Chad", documents some
of the immediate concerns of this vulnerable population. Based on a visit to
10 of the 11 refugee camps in Chad in January of 2005, the report
highlights the barriers to education that girls face, as well as the conditions
that put them at grave risk of gender-based violence, including rape.
In most of the camps they visited, the Women's Commission delegation
heard reports of rape at the hands of members of the janjaweed militia.
Women and girls reported being raped when venturing out of the camps to
collect firewood necessary for fuel. Those who bore children as a result of
rape were sometimes stigmatised by their community. Very little
psychosocial assistance was available to survivors of this violence.
Education was a priority for nearly all the refugees the Women's
Commission interviewed. While education programs exist in all of the
refugee camps, shelters and supplies for schools are inadequate. Often
classes are conducted in the open air because there are not enough tents.
In addition, schools were losing qualified teachers because
the "incentives" provided by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees were
so low; teachers could make more money in other ways, such as selling
firewood.
Despite these challenges, all the refugee women and girls the Women's
Commission interviewed said that education was their hope for the future
for themselves and their families and that when they return to Darfur, they
want to "fight with the pen, not with the sword."