Conflict, displacement, food insecurity and poverty offer fertile ground for the spread of HIV/AIDS. Many of the 20 million persons of concern to UNHCR worldwide live in such conditions. As their physical, financial and social insecurity erodes habitual caring and…
Sierra Leone is so staggeringly poor that HIV/AIDS is not at the top of people's concerns. After decades of poor governance and ten years of civil war, its economy and social infrastructure are in tatters. Sierra Leone is rated last…
Gender-based violence (GBV) describes any harm perpetrated against a person's will that is rooted in power inequities informed by gender roles. GBV encompasses physical, sexual and psychological violence, threats of violence, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Though GBV may…
When displaced women are abused it is usually women themselves who are the first to organise help. But because women's groups are usually among the least empowered in their community, they need support and assistance from humanitarian aid organisations. However,…
Surveys of Sudanese refugees in the Achol-pii refugee settlement in northern Uganda in 2000 and subsequently in the camp in Kiryandango to which they were relocated in 2002 have highlighted a high incidence of gender-based violence (GBV). Using a participatory…
Estimates of the scale of forced displacement in Colombia range between the 1.08m acknowledged by the government to upwards of 2.5m identified by NGOs. Colombian IDPs are far more likely to suffer significant violations of their sexual and reproductive rights…
Reproductive health (RH) indicators in Yemen are amongst the worst in the Arab World. Infant mortality rate stands at 73.85 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality ratio is of 850 per 100,000 live births. Only one in five…
Reducing rates of stillbirth and maternal and neonatal mortality is one of the main challenges for agencies providing reproductive health (RH) services for refugees. Nyarugusu refugee camp in northwest Tanzania provides a full range of comprehensive maternity services with 24-hour…
As in Afghanistan, humanitarian agencies in Iraq are confronted with a contested environment, a security crisis, major policy quandaries and issues arising from the need to interact with coalition forces whose intervention is seen as illegitimate by significant segments of…
According to reporting in much of the British media, particularly (although not exclusively) in tabloid newspapers, we face an asylum crisis: ever increasing numbers of asylum seekers arriving on our shores abusing the benefit system, involved in criminal or terrorist…