Approximately 6.6 million adolescents worldwide are currently displaced by armed conflict, many of them exposed to violence and acute poverty and separated from their families and communities(1). Like all young people, refugee adolescents have special needs during their years of…
World Health Organisation assessments in 2000 of adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) activities in refugee camps in western Tanzania discovered major shortcomings. Young people complained that services did not meet their needs, service providers were judgemental, waiting times were…
Much has been written about the restrictions on access to health for women under the Taliban regime that controlled Afghanistan until 2001. Taliban edicts gave institutional standing to practices which limited women's movements in public unless accompanied by a male…
Guatemala has had a long and violent history of internal conflict(1). Complex social inequalities have been exacerbated by the effects of civil war. After peace accords were signed in Mexico in December 1996 Guatemalan refugees were repatriated to areas greatly…
Every year more than half a million women die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Many more suffer severe disabilities. WHO estimates that 15% of all pregnant women will develop direct obstetric complications such as haemorrhage, obstructed or prolonged labour,…
The government of Angola is working with NGOs to initiate a series of aggressive HIV prevention activities and information campaigns. Twenty-five years of civil war, however, have robbed the country of its ability to procure enough contraceptives for these programmes,…
It is of vital importance for refugees and internally displaced persons that their reproductive health needs are covered. There has been a growing understanding of this in recent decades but in the last few years there has been a stark…
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…