La Strada Documentation Center

Peril or Protection: The Link Between Livelihoods and Gender-based Violence in Displacement Settings

Document number
2450
Date
2009
Title
Peril or Protection: The Link Between Livelihoods and Gender-based Violence in Displacement Settings
Author/publisher
Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)
Availability
LSI library
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Women's rights; Women; Control and regulation of prostitution, Protection, Punishable forms of prostitution, Sex tourism, Pornography, Domestic violence, Prostitution, Rape, Sexual harassment, Violence, Human rights violation, Crime against humanity, War crime, Armed conflict, Post-conflict situation, Terrorism,
Summary

When women are displaced due to conflict or human rights abuses, they adopt new strategies to provide for themselves and their families. These new strategies often place them at risk for gender-based violence (GBV), including sexual exploitation and abuse, rape and domestic violence. Without safe economic opportunities, displaced women employ strategies such as prostitution, trading sex for food and leaving the relative safety of refugee camps to collect firewood to cook with or to sell. The Women’s Refugee Commission undertook research to determine whether programs set up to provide women with safe, alternative livelihoods do in fact reduce their risk of exposureto violence. This report combines findings from three field missions to refugee settings; a pilot project in Burundi providing refugees with increased access to economic resources through village savings and loan associations; and desk research and interviews targeting promising examples of economic empowerment interventions that increase women’s safety. This report can be found here.

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