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A little goes a long way...International Women's Day and the Survival Needs of Women, from ACTION AGENDA BLOG
08 Mar 2009 21:58:00 GMT
 Source: Women's Refugee Commission
Women's Refugee Commission

Website: Website: http://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/blog

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Girls must gather firewood, taking time away from attending school.
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Girls must gather firewood, taking time away from attending school.
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ACTION AGENDA BLOG By Ada Williams Prince, Women's Refugee Commission

Today is International Women's Day, the one day the world celebrates and recognizes the achievement, participation and engagement of women. My god-daughter was born on March 8 so I celebrate every year in a different way. I look towards the future as she turns 4, 5, 6 then this year 7! It's amazing to watch her grow up as a girl in the western world.

At the same time, I can't help but think every year about girls I have met in refugee camps. In countries around the world there are violent conflicts-and within these conflicts, women and girls suffer their impact disproportionately. While women and girls endure the same trauma as the rest of the population-bombings, famines, epidemics, mass executions, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, forced migration, ethnic cleansing, threats and intimidation-they are also targets of specific forms of violence and abuse, including sexual violence and exploitation.

Usually, when I meet refugee women, they are working. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, gathering water and collecting firewood. On many occasions I meet girls who go to school, but unfortunately when they return from school, instead of doing homework they are cooking, cleaning, taking care of siblings, gathering water and collecting firewood .

During conflict, women and girls face risks to their safety and well-being every day. They must take risks to cook their food and make a living . When women and girls leave the camps to collect firewood, as they must in order to cook the food provided, often they are violently attacked.

The Women's Refugee Commission works to prevent and respond to violence against women, youth and children by advocating to ensure they have safe access to one of their basic means of survival: cooking fuel and firewood . When conducting extensive research in refugee camps in Darfur and Nepal, refugee women identified this as a major concern for them.

We learned as part of this research that very little was being done to deal with this problem. There is no coordination, strategy or agency that is dedicated to this very simple problem. As part of a coalition of UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Women's Refugee Commission is leading an international effort to change the way the humanitarian community tackles this issue. Providing appropriate fuel can promote safe access to fuel and other fuel sources for women and girls in crisis situations.

We worked diligently with others on an Inter-Agency Task Force - the highest UN coordination body - to address fuel strategies in humanitarian settings. With 25 members representing 17 key UN humanitarian agencies, the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement and the major NGO consortia, the Task Force developed guidance on how to address fuel-related issues in humanitarian settings, which has now been endorsed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)*. UN agencies and NGOs have publicly said they all agree there is a problem, and the policy framework adopted offers specific ways to tackle this problem. The crucial next steps are implementing the guidance along with donors who support this. In celebration of International Women's Day, we recognize that women must have their very basic survival needs met: food, water, shelter and FUEL!

* The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is a unique inter-agency forum for coordination, policy development and decision-making involving the key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners.

Ada Williams Prince is the Senior Advocacy Officer of the Women's Refugee Commission.


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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Indian police officers detain Zamrooda Habib (C), chairman of the Muslim Khawteen Markaz (MKM), a women's separatist group, during a protest in Srinagar on International Women's Day March 8, 2009. Police ...


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Last updated:Mon Mar 9 10:23:51 2009