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Dispatches No. 233
Up | March 14, 2008
REFUGEE NEWS BRIEFINGS
UPDATES ON JRS PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
REFUGEE NEWS BRIEFINGS
KENYA: REFUGEE WOMEN SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH DISPLACED KENYANS
On the eve of International Women's Day, 8 March, seven refugee women of various nationalities visited a camp hosting 215 internally displaced Kenyan women as a sign of solidarity.
The women, accompanied by the representatives of refugee organisations travelled to a camp in Limuru, some 30km from the capital, Nairobi. The Kenyan women were displaced during the post-election violence last month in the Western Province cities of Eldoret and Burnt Forest, among others. The agencies visited the camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) with several refugee women as a first step to bring the women together.
"Many refugee women in Kenya have been through difficult experiences and are still struggling. But they feel grateful to Kenyans for the welcome they received after they fled their homes. For years, Kenya has hosted refugees - and the refugee women wanted to do something to show their solidarity with displaced Kenyan women", JRS Kenya, Urban Emergency Assistance Project Director, Irene Waweru, told Dispatches.
The refugees brought the message that women have an important role to play in the peace-building process. A Rwandese refugee woman spoke about her own experience of fleeing her home and how she coped. She addressed the issue of peace and how women can help the process by coming together. The refugees also provided the IDP women information on sexual and gender-based violence and the new Kenyan Sexual Offences Act.
The refugee organisations which supported the initiative include the African Refugee Programme, Refugee Consortium of Kenya, Windle Trust and JRS.
Some Kenyan women in the camp have established self-help groups. One of the activities includes the production and sale of clothing items. Some of the materials, such as wool and knitting needles were provided by JRS.
Approximately 1,500 people have died as a result of the violence and almost half a million have been displaced since the disputed election on 27 December. On
28 February, the government and opposition reached an agreement on a power- sharing deal to put an end to the country's worst outburst of post-election violence in its history.
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CHAD: FUNDING NEEDED TO TRAIN COMMUNITY TEACHERS
"Most schools for internally displaced persons in the eastern Chad employ community teachers. Their level of training is inferior to that of fully trained teachers. Some do not have any formal education. The immediate response lies in the training of community teachers and getting their qualifications recognised by the state", Catherine Lemare, Education Project Director, JRS Chad, told Dispatches on 13 March.
Since late 2006, the UN children's agency (UNICEF), together with JRS Chad and other NGOs, have begun building an education system for Chadian children displaced by inter-communal fighting and cross-border attacks by Sudanese militias.
Organisations like JRS face many difficulties since education is not considered a priority for the government or the international community, and the literacy rate of children in the region is less than 10%. But the biggest obstacle faced by organisations promoting education is the shortage of teachers.
The few trained teachers sent by the state to eastern Chad often leave due to the harsh conditions and lack of security. There were just 37 trained teachers for 104 primary schools during the 2005/2006 academic year. If they stay in the region, most could earn more money working for NGOs.
"The little they are supposed to earn from the government - about US$ 67 per month - often never comes. In addition, the government does not take on many community teachers since they have very small quotas allotted to such type of employment", said Elise Joisel, JRS education project director at Goz Beida, eastern Chad.
Even harder than finding teachers is finding the funds to pay them. In order to overcome this problem, JRS has begun paying the bulk of the salaries of the teachers in the camps for internally displaced persons, with the added help of parents from the communities who chip in.
But even when there are teachers, makeshift classrooms and 'school-dinner'
programmes, many children are still absent from schools. Children, particularly young girls, from displaced families often spend their days searching for wood in order to sell it - one of the few forms of revenue for the displaced.
Yet, with arrival of humanitarian organisations, school attendance levels have increased to 15% in the department of Dar Sila, where most of the displaced populations in the east of the country live.
"This shows that where education is offered, parents will send their children to school if they can", added Ms Lemare.
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SOUTH AFRICA: JRS URGES CALLS FOR PROTECTION OF WOMEN REFUGEES
On 7 March, on the eve of International Women's Day, JRS Southern Africa called attention to the plight of women refugees suffering ill treatment in host countries in the region.
JRS called on Southern African governments and peoples "to reflect upon how xenophobia, which is of epidemic proportions throughout our region, can cause us to do and say monstrous things."
"As we celebrate International Woman's Day, let us resolve to show the same respect for foreign women in our midst which our cultures demand we show to our mothers and daughters."
JRS Southern Africa recounted the recent arrest and separation of a Zimbabwean woman from her five-month-old South African-fathered baby. The woman was arrested in South Africa and charged with being an "illegal immigrant." The baby was being nourished exclusively on breast milk which the mother's arrest prevented.
JRS said that this case illustrates that for millions of women who seek asylum or flee disastrous economic and social conditions in their homelands, reception in the land of exile is sometimes inhumane, and xenophobia affects both foreign women and men.
This event followed a police raid on 31 January last on the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, arresting around 1,500 homeless people and Zimbabwean refugees. JRS described the raid as a disaster from beginning to end, serving as a distraction from the country's economic difficulties and the failures of government policy.
Until recently, the South African authorities had adopted a relatively tolerant approach to the estimated three million Zimbabweans seeking refuge from the political and economic meltdown in their home country.
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NEPAL: FIRE IN CAMP FOR BHUTANESE REFUGEES
On 1 March, thousands of refugees from Bhutan in eastern Nepal were made homeless after a devastating fire swept through Goldhap, destroying 85 percent of the 1,512 homes in the camp and injuring seven refugees. The camp management offices, and the disability and child play centres, as well as a few homes belonging to local residents, were also destroyed.
"More than 9,000 people were left with nothing except the clothes they were wearing. Only the schools, the health centre and some 228 refugee homes were spared. Seven people were brought to the nearby health centre with minor burns.
Thank God nobody was killed. Never in the 17 year history of the Bhutanese refugee camps has there been a catastrophe of this magnitude, the immensity of which is still being gauged", JRS Nepal Director, Varkey Perekatt SJ, told Dispatches on 9 March.
The fire started accidentally when a refugee family was cooking on the evening of the 1 March. Within a few minutes, a neighbour raised the alarm, but it was already too late. Fanned by a strong western breeze, home after home was set ablaze. The bamboo homes burned quickly.
JRS Nepal staff told Dispatches that it took a long time before the fire brigade arrived. Upon arrival, they were faced by a number of other problems: water shortages and narrow alleys between the refugee homes preventing the fire engines from passing.
As the school classrooms are now being used to shelter families affected by the fire, they cannot be used for the year VIII students taking state examinations. All
288 students and 10 teachers have been moved to three other refugee camps in the region. Another 400 class X students are due to begin their final examinations in a nearby local school on 17 March. All the students also received school uniforms, books and other materials.
Two days after the fire, the local chief district officer called an emergency meeting with the relevant government and UN agencies. After an evaluation of the damage, the government of Nepal announced a relief package of $US 46,000.
An Emergency Relief Co-ordination Committee was established in the meeting under the leadership of the local chief district officer. Subsequently, the UN refugee agency, JRS, and other national and international agencies, the army and the police began delivering emergency relief. Emergency plastic sheeting/tarpaulins and dry food were distributed on that day.
The Nepalese army helped to erect about 800 hundred emergency tents in the football ground and in the forest area. Teams were mobilised to construct temporary toilets and water tanks. Most of the households were shifted to these temporary shelters. Each affected family received a cash grant of eight euro (500 Nepalese rupees), and all the refugees in the camp received 14 days of food rations.
"At the moment, help is arriving from all directions, from local residents and national and international agencies. Food, clothes, kitchen utensils and money are being collected and delivered. Plans are underway to reconstruct all the refugee homes within two months. It will cost approximately US$ 500,000", added Fr Perekatt.
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SRI LANKA: NAVY CONFISCATES HOUSES BUILT BY JRS
On 5 March, JRS accused the Sri Lankan navy of confiscating permanent houses built for internally displaced persons affected by the country's civil war.
"Families who had been living in 50 houses on the country's western island of Mannar were forcibly removed recently, and the land has been taken over by government forces. All the houses have been completely vandalised by the navy", said Paul Newman, JRS South Asia advocacy officer.
"Government forces took over the land, saying the houses were too close to the sea, making them vulnerable to attacks by rebels and crossfire in the event of a battle between rebels and troops based on the island. But the government base is actually quite far away", Mr Newman said.
The JRS advocacy officer visited the housing project last month and described it as a very sad picture to see these places abandoned in this way. JRS has no legal recourse to contest the takeover of the land and housing, he said.
The ethnic Tamil rebels, the LTTE, have been fighting the government for autonomy for ethnic Tamil areas in northern and eastern Sri Lanka since 1983.
The conflict has left some 70,000 dead and many more displaced.
After full-scale government-rebel fighting resumed in 2006, all JRS projects for building permanent housing were scrapped, Mr Newman said.
Money once earmarked for infrastructure is now being diverted to set up temporary emergency shelter to accommodate the constant flow of displaced people, added the JRS advocacy officer.
Permanent housing projects were halted even though they were half-completed, he added, because if built they "would have been destroyed" by the military.
Newman said JRS' main concerns now are "lack of access to food and medicine for the people, multiple displacement, and violations of all forms of human rights including arbitrary detention, killings, rape and torture."
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HAITI: NORTHERN BORDER BECOMES A THEATRE OF VIOLENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
In a public statement on 6 March, JRS Haiti highlighted the spate of violence affecting the population living on the northern border. According to staff in the area, the crimes against the population have included theft, attacks, rape and kidnappings. The phenomenon of kidnapping, prevalent in the capital, is thought to be spreading to the border area.
JRS Haiti reminded the government and the national authorities that the security of the population living on the border is their responsibility and urged them to assume it.
On 30 January, Joseph Accina was killed in the border town of Capotille by a Haitian gang and his body was dumped in the nearby Dominican Republic. A lot of time went by before the police begun investigating the crime. Subsequently, JRS Haiti staff came forward with key information which has led to the arrests of some of those involved. Given the fragility of the justice system in the country, many fear revenge attacks.
On 25 February, a young Haitian adolescent, Lunia, was kidnapped and raped.
She was brought to the Dominican Republic and eventually escaped. It is widely believed in that the police do little to prevent the kidnapping of women and children and rape in the border area, and that the lack of a police response in this case is indicative.
On 26 February, a young Haitian migrant, Rolin Jean, was attacked in Pitobert, in the northeast of the Dominican Republic by members of a criminal gang. The gang amputated his right hand as he attempted to cross the border irregularly to the Dominican Republic. The motivation of the attack is unknown. JRS is pushing the local peace court in the border city of Wanament to open an investigation into what happened.
For further information see www.jrs.net/reports
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LATIN AMERICA: COLOMBIAN CONFLICT INCREASES INSECURITY IN THE BORDER AREAS
"Border populations in neighbouring in Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela are continuously threatened by the presence of irregular armed groups. For instance, on 1 March, in the Colombian military operation in Ecuadorian territory 24 individuals were killed. Sixteen were guerrillas and the other eight were civilians", Alfredo Infante SJ, JRS Latin America and Caribbean, told Dispatches on 10 March.
One of the civilians killed was a Mexican undertaking research on FARC, the left- wing guerrilla group. JRS Ecuador reported that three women were injured in the attack and were being treated in a hospital in the capital, Quito.
On 9 March, Venezuela restored diplomatic ties with Colombia. This happened after a week of tension following the decision by the Colombian army to send troops into Ecuadorian territory in pursuit of FARC members. On 1 March, both Ecuador and Venezuela had withdrawn their ambassadors from Bogotá. Despite a warming of relations between Ecuador and Colombia, by 14 March diplomatic relations had not been re-established.
Since 1997, the US government has provided more than four billion US dollars, mainly military aid as part of the US Plan Colombia programme. This has led to an escalation of the conflict in Colombia, which has split over, affecting neighbouring countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela.
There has been a huge increase in displacement during this period. Humanitarian organisations say that over three million Colombians are internally displaced and 600,000 have sought asylum abroad, principally in Ecuador. A further 10,000 have been recruited by left-wing guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and the armed forces. Moreover, 20,000 have been kidnapped, more than 3,000 of whom remain in captivity. Between 2002 and 2007, there were 935 extrajudicial executions.
"Far beyond the diplomatic crisis, we are in the midst of humanitarian crisis. The diplomatic rupture has been provoked by the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia.
In whatever negotiations that take place, we believe that the words of the victims, who are demanding truth, justice and reparation, need to be at the centre of the process", Fr Infante SJ, JRS Latin America and Caribbean, told Dispatches on 10 March.
"Until now all peace negotiations between the guerillas and the state in Colombia have failed, and the terms of the peace agreement between the state and paramilitaries have allowed impunity to persist. The law of Justice and Peace established for the paramilitaries has excluded the victims of violence", added Fr Infante SJ.
For further information in Spanish see www.jrs.net/alerts and www.sjrmecuador.org.ec/
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INTERNATIONAL: HISTORIC STEP FORWARD FOR TREATY TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS
On 22 February, after a week of tough diplomatic talks, the voice of survivors and committed states prevailed and a draft treaty to ban cluster munitions was endorsed for formal negotiation.
The so called "Wellington Declaration" provides the draft treaty text to be negotiated and agreed in Dublin in May 2008 to ban cluster munitions, assist survivors and ensure clearance of their land.
More than 500 representatives from 122 governments as well as campaigners and survivors of cluster bombs from 38 countries gathered in New Zealand for the penultimate meeting of the Oslo Process.
After intense discussion, there was broad agreement on the text of articles about victim assistance, clearance of cluster bomb contaminated areas and the destruction of stockpiles. Earlier proposals by certain countries to dilute and insert exceptions to the draft treaty were unsuccessful, but will be considered again during negotiations in Dublin. At the end of the week, the strong text of the treaty remains unchanged.
The most contentious issues revolved around possible exemptions to the ban for some types of cluster munitions, possible transition periods in which cluster munitions could still be used after being banned, and the use of cluster munitions in joint military operations by states that are not part of the future treaty. The responsibility of countries which have used cluster munitions in the past to help clear them up was also an issue.
During the course of the week, the developing world put up a strong stand in favour of a comprehensive ban. States such as Laos, Lebanon, Indonesia and Nigeria called for the strongest possible treaty with no exception or exemptions for 'technical fixes' which they claim they will never be able to afford.
The concerns of a minority of states have been compiled in a separate document for consideration in Dublin, but this does not have the same weight as the treaty text.
The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) is a global network of 200 civil society organisations working in over 70 countries to end the harm caused by cluster munitions. Founding members include Human Rights Watch and JRS Cambodia Campaigner, Tun Channareth from the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines which secured the 1997 Landmine Ban Treaty.
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UPDATES ON JRS PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
CÔTE D'IVOIRE: MOBILE HEALTH CLINIC PROJECT CLOSES
At the end of February, the JRS Mobile Clinic in Bouaké rendered its last services. The project was established in 2003 in response to the abandonment of public healthcare centres during a political crisis which divided the country into a rebel-held north and government run south and displaced some 700,000 persons. The Clinic served in seven villages of Bouaké, the former rebel capital located in the country's north.
The clinic closed partly due to the gradual return of public healthcare services throughout the country. However, this process has occurred more slowly than anticipated and poor living conditions in northern and central regions of the country remain notorious. According to observers, clinic personnel remain widely unpaid, medication stocks are low, and services are too expensive for most residents. Still, some progress has been made.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 115 health centres across the country were re-constructed and equipped in 2007 through the efforts of NGOs in collaboration with the UN children agency (UNICEF), WHO, and the Organisation for the Coordination of Human affairs.
Beneficiaries of the JRS Mobile Clinic have responded positively to JRS services and personnel since the project began. Clinic staff collaborated closely with local communities and leaders in responding to people's medical needs in an appropriate and effective manner.
"We are all satisfied with the work of JRS. The mobile clinic has been of great service to populations in the villages," commented one community leader and beneficiary who collaborated with JRS mobile clinic staff to implement services in his village.
Some 60,000 medical consultations have been performed since the project began, 18,551 of which were carried out in 2007.
JRS will continue to advocate on behalf of those who lack access to healthcare services by encouraging the state to effectively re-deploy throughout the country as soon as possible. JRS hopes to see all public healthcare personnel fully paid and clinics properly functioning in 2008.
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LIBERIA: WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMME BEGINS SECOND CYCLE
On 4 February, the JRS-supported centre, Consolidated Action to Rescue and Empower Women (CAREW), began its second vocational skills development programme for survivors of sexual violence.
The centre was created in July 2007 through the initiatives of Liberians returned from Lainé Refugee Camp in Guinea as a safe alternative for women in vulnerable situations. While the programme is also open to men, priority is given to women living in the most at-risk conditions.
CAREW was established in Soul Clinic, a neighbourhood in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, due to the prevalence of abductions and forced sexual servitude of women and girls in the area. During Liberia's fourteen-year civil war, widespread sexual violence led to unwanted pregnancies and abuse. The war also caused socio-economic insecurity, causing many women to turn to prostitution as a means of survival. CAREW's mission is to therefore empower such women to gain self-sustainability through skills training.
Last December, 76 people, the vast majority women, graduated from CAREW's first six-month skills training programme which included courses in tailoring, baking, beauty care, and tie-dye. The second programme offers advanced tailoring in addition to these courses. Women's peace and reconciliation groups were likewise established. Responding to the needs of the community, CAREW also plans to offer a six-month adult literacy course.
Many of the graduates are working in the local market using their various skills.
Others are taking another course with CAREW. For instance, those who took tailoring in the first semester are taking Advanced Tailoring now.
CAREW is supported by the JRS Liberia office based in Monrovia.
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