Statement of the Caucus on Uprooted Women

U.N. General Assembly Special Session, Beijing Plus Five

June 2000

Over 80% of the world's refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are women and children. Refugees by definition have crossed international borders to seek a safe haven, and are eligible for international protection and assistance under the mandate of the UNHCR. Internally displaced persons may suffer systematic violations of their human rights, conflict, ethnic or religious oppression, but remain within the borders of their own country and have no institutional or legal mechanism for receiving international assistance. They remain under the jurisdiction and responsibility of their governments. Thus, the system responsible for upholding the rights of IDPs may be the very system responsible for their displacement and the violations against their rights. In these circumstances, protection must be the responsibility of the international community.

Women are uprooted as a result of many different circumstances, including among other things, armed and other forms of conflict (international and internal) and foreign occupation; ethnic, religious, cultural and gender-based persecution; sexual violence, and economic necessity. Like refugee women, internally displaced women face the burdens of extreme poverty, changes in family and community structure and consequent family violence, and manipulation of culture. Amidst these struggles, the burdens of survival for themselves and their families also fall on women's shoulders. Women struggling to provide for their families without protection (legal or physical) and often with little or no resources, may turn to menial jobs or prostitution. Considering that displaced women are often uprooted rural women, gender-sensitive programs should be designed with their needs and capacities in mind, including literacy/education, food and fuel for cooking, security, potable water, shelter, skills training, primary and comprehensive health care, including psycho-social counseling. Adequate government resources, especially but not only financial, are absolutely essential to protection of these populations. Further, discrimination against migrant/immigrant women on any grounds -- especially their legal status -- should be monitored and prosecuted.

The Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) is a landmark document. This statement is meant to enhance the scope of its protections, not to contradict or replace them. Mindful that the General Assembly Special Session (GASS) has been debating language in the draft Outcome Document that threatens to diminish the impact of the PFA, the Uprooted Women's Caucus considered certain categories of uprooted women which we believe are under-protected or overlooked altogether in the PFA. These include: internally displaced, long-term displaced and migrant women. The issue of sexual violence was also discussed.

The Caucus urges the following be addressed by national governments and the international community:

Internally displaced women (IDPs)

• The UN Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced Persons, which explicitly address the right of IDPs to be protected against gender-based violence, should be fully implemented. We note in particular Principle One: IDPs shall enjoy, in full equality, the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other persons in their country. They shall not be discriminated against in the enjoyment of any rights and freedoms on the ground that they are internally displaced.
  
• The international community should pressure governments to ratify, implement, and/or enforce international human rights and humanitarian laws, including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. National legislation should be passed or amended to ensure domestic laws are consistent with international standards.
  
• Strategies for the prevention of displacement should be a priority for governments and the international community.
  

From the onset of crisis:

• IDPs, especially women, must have access to international agencies for humanitarian assistance and protection, including basic commodities such as food, water, shelter materials and services such as rudimentary health care.
• The international community must recognize IDPs as a population deserving the same urgent assistance and protection as refugees, and should designate an international agency to be responsible for them.
• International assistance should be coordinated in collaboration with local NGOs and community and religious organizations, including the IDP population, especially women. IDPs, especially women and adolescents, should participate fully in the management of camps.
• In case of human rights abuses by national and international personnel, mechanisms and frameworks should be developed to enable victims to seek redress.
• A reproductive health point person should be deployed in the field in the earliest days of the emergency to coordinate an effective response to refuge women and girls' reproductive health rights and needs.


Long-term refugees and IDPs

• A plan with a time-frame should be instituted for relocating refugees and IDPs from camp living to stable homes, however temporary. Refugee and displaced women should have a role in decision making about return and relocation.
• Strategies for durable solutions must involve safe repatriation to reduce the harmful physical and mental effects, including "dependency syndrome," of camp living. De-mining and mine awareness training, restoration of buildings and infrastructure, as well as creation of employment opportunities, should be part of the strategy.
• Basic necessities, including health care, protection and identity cards should be given to urban refugees and IDPs.
• International assistance must include long-term development and capacity-building initiatives, with particular attention to integrating women into planning and decision-making prior to and during program implementation.
• Greater priority should be placed on coordination between relevant UN agencies and Special Representatives to the Secretary General (i.e., UNHCR, SRSG on Children, SRSG on IDPs) to address the problems of long-term displacement.


Sexual and other gender-based violence against refugee, IDP and migrant/immigrant women and girls



• Recognizing the significant legal contribution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in defining sexual violence in the context of armed conflict (and post-conflict situations), we urge all States to ratify and implement the Statute of the ICC. The ICC Statute includes gender-related crimes and crimes of sexual violence, and affirms that rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, and other forms of sexual violence constitute, in defined circumstances, a crime against humanity and a war crime.
• Sexual violence against women and girls should be recognized and redressed by national and international legal bodies.
• UNHCR and other Protection Officers should be appointed and charged with mobilising immediate community and international support for the protection of women experiencing violence due to conflict, including domestic violence. While maintaining the victims' dignity, documentation on abuses should be collected for use in redressing violations, with particular emphasis on women making their statements in their own language.
• Where the UN and the international community are involved in reconstruction and the development of transitional rule of law, a priority should be to develop a system and allocate resources to create awareness among women of their rights, and to train officials and agencies, including national and international police and peacekeeping forces, to address the needs of raped and otherwise abused women, and to receive and investigate complaints.
• Rape and sexual torture (in accordance with the Convention Against Torture definition), and the ongoing social isolation of victims, must be recognised by States as grounds for refugee status and asylum.
• Greater attention is needed to the vulnerability of refugee and IDP women to trafficking and prostitution in areas of conflict. These women should be ensured access to asylum procedures.
• Female genital mutilation (FGM) and defilement must be recognised as forms of violence against women and girls, and those fleeing such practices should be granted refugee status.
• Refugee and IDP women are especially vulnerable in cases of sexual harassment, particularly in the work-place. Fearing losing critical and hard-found income, or worse -- being expelled from the country or region of refuge, these women are much less likely to lodge complaints. Further investigation and protection is needed.
  

The Caucus on Uprooted Women included NGO participants from Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Burundi, Canada, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kosovo, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Tibet, Turkish Cyprus, Uganda, the United States, Vietnam and Zambia, among other countries and regions of the world.

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