Seeking Change for Women & Girls in Hagadera Refugee Camp — A Conversation with GBV Case Workers
The below was written by Anna Smith, Frameworks and Grants Manager at the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It is shared with the permission of Phloviance Osumba and Dorcase Onkwani, Case Workers at the IRC in Kenya. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
2020 marks the sixth year of the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Strategic Partnership with Irish Aid, a unique collaboration strengthening prevention and response to gender based violence (GBV) in emergencies and protracted humanitarian crises. Through this partnership, Ireland has committed over €9 million to support IRC’s Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) work. Not only does it enable IRC to deliver life-saving services for women and girls in five protracted and underfunded humanitarian settings, it also provides emergency response funding to help IRC put GBV services in place during the earliest phase of a crisis. This is even more critical in the current climate as evidence shows the impact of COVID-19 is leading to increased levels of violence against women and girls.
As the IRC’s Irish Aid partnership manager, I traveled to Kenya at the end of last year to meet and work with the team delivering activities under this partnership. I share here, with their permission, a summary of the conversation I had with case workers Phloviance Osumba and Dorcas Onkwani. Both are based in Hagadera Camp, part of the Dadaab refugee complex in northern Kenya, home to over 215,000 refugees, the majority escaping famine and conflict in neighbouring Somalia. Our chat captures the real challenges faced by women and girls living in these settings, as well as the importance of the work carried out by our dedicated WPE teams.
What is life like for women and girls in Hagadera camp and what are the main challenges they face?
It is not easy because this is a very male dominated society. Most domestic chores are left to the women, who become pregnant almost as soon as they reach reproductive age and will go on to have many children. On average a woman in Hagadera can have between 8 and 12 children, and a husband may choose to marry other women if a wife refuses to continue becoming pregnant. Often, women find that because of large family sizes, including multiple wives and many children, they struggle financially to meet the needs of the family.
Many women are vulnerable because they get married very young, they have no basic education and they rely totally on their husbands for financial support. A husband may deny their wife the money she needs, and it can escalate to violence and physical abuse. Most of the cases we handle are intimate partner violence. It can happen almost on a daily basis and many women don’t break the silence because it is often perceived as normal to be beaten. Others are afraid of the discrimination that will come from the community or of being separated from their family. The level of trauma in the camp is high among women and girls.
Women’s voices are hardly heard. Most of the decisions are made by men, especially when it comes to marriage. For adolescent girls, as soon as they have undergone puberty, they are considered ready for marriage. Their husbands are brought to them most of the time, selected by their fathers or uncles. Sometimes these men are much older, even older than their fathers, and the woman or girl may be their third or fourth wife. You don’t have a choice. You do it to please your parents. Adolescent girls are also affected by harmful traditional practices, such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). It is their culture and their tradition. Everybody else has gone through it, even their mothers, so you can’t say no. The community can be very hostile towards girls if they do say no, and men often want to marry only women who have undergone the practice.
Can you explain more about what you do in your jobs as case workers?
We are based at the IRC Support Centre where we receive survivors of GBV and carry out case management and psychosocial support (PSS). We handle a range of GBV cases including intimate partner violence, sexual violence (including attempted rape or FGM), early and forced marriage and emotional abuse. Most cases come between 10am and 1pm, after women have carried out their morning chores. It can be an overwhelming time of day for us — we are only two, with two counselling rooms. We really want to give the best to the survivors, but psychological care takes time. It takes at least one hour for each session with a client. We assess their needs, make a record of their case details, which with their consent, are recorded on the confidential GBV Information Management System (GBV IMS). We also refer women for other services. This is always done with the survivor’s consent. If I’m supporting a woman who has survived sexual violence then our support centre is a ‘One Stop Shop’ so doctors are available to examine and provide medical care to the survivor. Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) can be given to the client to prevent HIV transmission, pregnancy and other STIs. We also offer clients psychosocial support, and liaise with our partners to refer survivors for other services like legal support, to the police or for child counselling. We have a very functional interagency referral pathway.
The IRC has also been taking the lead in organising GBV case conference meetings with other partners. This is where we come together as partners to discuss some of the complex cases we are all supporting in order to coordinate our care. Today we held one. We discussed cases jointly and came up with ways we can provide the support the survivor has requested and make a plan to coordinate her care appropriately. Our partners include UNHCR, Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK), Terre des Hommes (TDH), Refugee Affairs Secretariat (RAS) and the Kenya Police.
We also conduct dignity kit distribution on a quarterly basis. We give to up to 100 women per distribution and kits include basic sanitary items that will help women and girls restore their dignity. These items help boost their morale, their self-esteem, their self-worth, something often they don’t feel in their community.
Our Centre is the only one supporting women and girls in this camp. Per month we normally receive between 200 and 250 GBV survivors and other beneficiaries. Not all of these cases will be GBV cases. Women and girls face multiple problems and we often receive clients seeking all manner of help; for example with problems accessing rations or accessing other material support. We link up these clients with UNHCR and other relevant agencies. The number of new GBV cases varies but on average there are 15–20 per month with some months up to 25 or 26, and on average 4 or 5 rape cases. We know though, that there are many more unreported cases in which women are too scared to disclose.
What do you think are the positive outcomes for women who come to receive case management services?
There is satisfaction when you help a client who arrived really low, maybe some even at the point of breaking down, but by the time you finish a session, they are able to smile. This continues during the consecutive follow-up sessions where they become better, improved and even psychologically healed. We are also able to link many of our clients with women and girls’ safe spaces that IRC run in the community where women receive economic empowerment through skill building activities such as soap making or tie and dye. Adolescent girls also receive life skills training through the adolescent girls programme Girl Shine, learning to build trust and make decisions, especially on issues that surround their life and their well-being. After the psychosocial healing many of the women who attend our centre become change advocates in the community for other women going through the same experience but who have no idea where to go. They become community referral agents.
Through feedback from the women we work with we are able to improve and reinforce other areas of work too. We are also able to act as change agents if there is something that isn’t working. For example we received feedback that there was difficulty in entering the compounds of one of the agencies on our referral pathway because guards asked for money or they asked for phone numbers of the women and girls entering, who would later offer their bodies to the guards in exchange for access. After receiving this feedback, we are able to take up the matter and address it at a higher level on their behalf.
Phloviance also adds: I was very privileged last week to attend a regional training session, with six countries represented. I was very proud because we have the ideal ‘One Stop Shop’. A survivor walks in and they get everything they need under one roof. They don’t have to go from one place to another to access services. In other country programmes, if they handle a rape case they have to refer the client to other facilities or organizations for clinical care, often not managed by IRC. It is hard to make sure the survivor receives the services they need. Our ‘One Stop Shop’ model is one other countries want to replicate.
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I want to thank Phloviance and Dorcas for taking the time to share their experiences with me. Their insights really brought home to me the harsh reality faced by women and girls living in displacement settings, where ensuring the safety and well-being of yourself and your family is a daily challenge. It has also been an important reminder of how Irish Aid is leading the way in terms of putting the needs of women and girls at the heart of humanitarian response.
