Women ‘exposed’ to abuse in IDP camps

The restrictive conditions in the camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) put women at a disproportionate risk of abuse, a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has said.

According to the UN, this makes them resort to high-risk coping strategies like transactional sex.

The report says an increasing number of women and girls have had to resort survival sex in exchange for food and money in order to feed their families.

“Girls in the camps of Maiduguri are also increasingly resorting to survival sex, most notably in relation to food distribution within the camps or in order to secure permission to leave the camps that restrict the movement of internally displaced people,” the UN said.

The UN said the burden of women work have now increased as they have to combine unpaid work and paid work- their traditional role of collecting firewood for the household, and selling a bundle of 15 to 20 for 100 naira.

Women, in performing this task, are increasingly being attacked and raped, “and in the newly accessible areas where Boko Haram still have a marked presence, there have been reports of women being killed and/or abducted,” the UN said.