The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001.  Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date.  This site is not updated so external links may no longer function.  Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

U.S. Policy Initiatives Related to Refugee Women

Fact sheet prepared by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, March 1997.

Eighty percent of the approximately 26 million refugees and displaced persons in the world today who come under the care of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are women and children. From Bosnia to Rwanda, from Tajikistan to Liberia, women have fled and continue to flee war and repression, often leaving behind fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers who are fighting or who are in jails or in cemeteries.

Refugee women are vulnerable to violence at every stage of their flight. Sexual violence, including rape, is one of the most terrible dangers confronting refugee women. These women are often single-handedly responsible for the survival of their children even when their own survival is at stake. Every day provides challenges: finding cooking fuel, carrying water, obtaining sufficient food at distribution sites, and obtaining access to primary health care for themselves and their children.

Protection

Policies to protect and assist refugee women and the implementation of programs which incorporate these policies are major priorities in U.S. refugee policy.

Women share the protection problems experienced by all refugees. They need protection against forced return to their countries of origin; security against armed attacks; protection from unjustified detention; a legal status that accords adequate social and economic rights; and access to such basic needs as food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. But refugee women also have special needs: They need protection against sexual and physical abuse, exploitation, and sexual discrimination in the delivery of humanitarian supplies and services.

The United States has long been a leading advocate for focusing attention on the special needs of refugee women. It has worked closely with UNHCR to establish policies and guidelines for protection and assistance to refugee women to ensure that these special needs are met. The United States has provided funding for many programs designed to improve the protection of women refugees. One of these is the Bosnian Women's Initiative that was announced by President Clinton in June 1996. This initiative promotes the reintegration of women into the Bosnia's economy through training programs, legal assistance, and support for microenterprise projects.

Assistance Programs

The connection between assistance to refugees and their protection is a strong one: protection is not useful if a refugee is starving; sustenance alone without protection is of little benefit to a refugee.

The United States presses the organizations it funds to assist refugees and conflict victims to ensure that their programs of direct assistance or those which promote self-sufficiency among refugees are accessible to women. In some cases, this requires adjusting the type of activity envisioned to include appropriate emphasis on employment; in other cases, it may require an imaginative mix of activities such as combining therapeutic infant feeding programs with education for the mothers as they accompany their children.

The United States has urged UNHCR, the World Food Program (WFP), and their implementing partners to involve women in the programming and delivery of supplies for refugees, especially food. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has funded a technical adviser in the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children to work in the field to incorporate UNHCR's guidelines on the protection of refugee women into its refugee assistance programs.

Education is a sector of assistance specifically highlighted in the Program of Action of both the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994 and at the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in Beijing in 1995. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has supported education programs to target Afghan girls in Pakistan, who otherwise would not have equal access to education with boys.

Reproductive Health

The ICPD and the FWCW both emphasize the provision of reproductive health care services for all populations, including refugees and internally displaced persons. The ICPD Program of Action specifically affirmed that all countries should make accessible through primary health care systems, reproductive health care to all individuals of appropriate age, including refugees and internally displaced persons.

The United States funded a symposium on reproductive health for refugees, from which emerged guidelines for addressing reproductive health considerations which are of heightened concern to refugee populations, especially sexual violence. Since then, we have funded and provided a reproductive health coordinator at UNHCR Headquarters who is managing the field testing of the guidelines. UNHCR has formed an international working group on reproductive health for refugees, which comprises interested governments and non-governmental organizations involved in refugee health.

U.S. Initiatives for the Advancement of Women

1996

Bosnian Women's Initiative. $5 million, announced by the President in June at the G-7 Summit in Lyon, to promote the reintegration of women--returning refugees, widows, or others--into the economy in Bosnia, emphasizing training, legal assistance, and support for microenterprise projects. The initiative is managed by the UNHCR and is supported by activities of U.S. Ambassador to Austria Swanee Hunt.

Reproductive Health for Refugees. $172,393 to establish a reproductive health coordinator at UNHCR, produce a field manual on reproductive health,and create an international working group to address reproductive health concerns for refugees. As a result, UNHCR's recent emergency response in the Great Lakes has included a reproductive health component for the first time.

UNHCR Women's Initiative Fund. $200,000 to establish a fund for pilot projects to address women-specific concerns in an imaginative non-traditional or experimental manner to improve the protection or self-sufficiency of refugee women.

Promotion of Protection of Refugee Women. $150,000 to the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children to promote implementation of UNHCR's guidelines on the protection of women in programs run by non-governmental organizations, which are implementing partners of UNHCR.

Education for Afghan Refugee Girls. $217,500 to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to support schools for Afghan refugee girls in Pakistan.

1997

Rwandan Women's Initiative. $1 million in response to UNHCR's Great Lakes appeal for a UNHCR initiative to address refugee women's reintegration, including protection concerns as well as self-sufficiency efforts, into Rwanda, as was done in Bosnia in 1996.

UNHCR Initiatives for Refugee Women. Total of $500,000: $200,000 for the continued integration of reproductive health into emergency and ongoing health programs for refugees, and $300,000 to the UNHCR Women's Initiative Fund for new, non-traditional, pilot projects to ensure that refugee women have programs which provide them protection or assist them in becoming self-sufficient.

[end of document]

Return to the DOSFAN Home Page
This is an official U.S. Government source for information on the WWW. Inclusion of non-U.S. Government links does not imply endorsement of contents.