By Huma Yusuf
Earlier this month, Nafeesa Shah, general secretary of the Women Parliamentarians Caucus, visited IDP camps to distribute relief goods. After meeting with several displaced people, Shah spoke about the plight of IDPs and the gravity of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Frontier province.
What she did not mention were the specific issues that women in IDP camps face. The fact is, a woman’s experience in a crowded refugee camp is markedly different from that of a man in terms of medical concerns, mobility and rehabilitation. This is one crisis in which gender definitely matters.
Pregnant women or those who have recently given birth are particularly in need of special attention. According to the United Nations Population Fund, 6,000 displaced women are expected to give birth in June.
Owing to the deteriorating security situation over the past few months, expectant mothers have not had access to proper medication, multivitamins and food supplies for the duration of their pregnancy.
Many have walked between 10 and 20 hours from their villages to arrive in IDP camps in Mardan, Swabi and on the outskirts of Peshawar. Some have gone into labour while in flight.
Once at the camps, they have continued to struggle with a shortage of food and medical supplies. As a result, up to 900 women are expected to require lifesaving surgery for pregnancy-related complications this month.
Those women who have recently given birth are also vulnerable. Food distribution set-ups at the camps cannot account for the fact that certain families include nursing mothers with additional nutritional needs. As they continue to be deprived of balanced diets and vitamin and dairy supplements, women and infants are faced with a variety of post-partum health complications.
Given the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis – last week, the number of IDPs approached the 3.8 million mark – it is understandable that special care for pregnant women and nursing mothers is hard to come by. There are only six clinics providing reproductive health services – antenatal and postnatal exams and family planning options – in camps in the Frontier.
Of these, five can provide emergency obstetric care. To address the shortfall, UN workers are distributing clean-delivery kits and essential medical instruments to aid IDP women as they give birth in the camps. The provision of medical attention to pregnant, nursing and menstruating women is further complicated by cultural constraints.
Many women refuse to be treated by male doctors. And while Lady Health Workers have been deployed in many camps to provide primary healthcare and education, the shortage of female gynaecologists and skilled birth attendants is being acutely felt. Medical attention is not the only thing compromised by cultural inhibitions.
As they continue observing purdah, many women refuse to leave the tents they have been assigned. With temperatures soaring, the tents are become increasingly stifling and uncomfortable – particularly for IDPs who are accustomed to a cooler climate. Many women also complain of claustrophobia, loneliness and resultant depression.
In their villages, even while in purdah, women could roam in large courtyards or fields attached to their homes. But in IDP camps, they cannot even stroll a few tents down the row to mingle with relatives or other families from their village.
Cloistered in their tents, women IDPs – particularly single women and widows – are at a disadvantage in terms of accessing services and provisions. When these are distributed, IDPs have to form queues, which women often do not join. They are also rarely emboldened to approach camp administrators with problems and are not included in decision-making processes.
Moreover, for certain supplies or to place phone calls, IDPs occasionally have to leave the camps and venture into the nearest city or town. For women who have never left their homes, these trips are disorienting and traumatic. Those who therefore choose not to venture beyond their tents are further isolated or deprived of necessary supplies.
During displacement crises in other parts of the world such as Rwanda and Sri Lanka, women in IDP camps have become vulnerable to sexual assault. Thankfully, such reports have not surfaced from local camps as yet. But international IDP and refugee agencies stress the need for deploying female police officers or organising ‘community policing’ in camps in an effort to protect vulnerable women.
Sadly, the problems of innumerable female IDPs will not end with their repatriation. CARE International recently reported that many women currently staying in IDP camps arrived alone, choosing to leave their villages only because their husbands or fathers vanished or were killed during military-militant showdowns. These women are more worried about what will happen to them and their children once the humanitarian crisis subsides and they are encouraged to return home.
In such cases, women may need vocational training, initial financial support and legislative help securing their family’s property for future security. But measures for long-term rehabilitation of unaccompanied women can only begin once these women have been identified.
Given the myriad problems facing female IDPs, it is essential that they receive special attention and support. Having recently failed the women of the Frontier province by allowing the passage of the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation, women parliamentarians should now rally to ensure that women in the camps do not suffer unduly.
Harping about women’s issues may no longer be in vogue. But to continue denying the fact that women need different accommodations in IDP camps is to continue denying them their basic rights.
Rather than make dramatic visits to IDP camps for photo-ops, members of the Women Parliamentarians Caucus can plan ways in which to engage more female doctors at the camps, arrange tent-to-tent visits by female social workers to assess the needs of female IDPs who observe purdah, and look ahead to a brighter future by mobilising resources – from cellphones and basic education to small loans – that women may need to resume their lives once the military operation ends.
huma.yusuf@gmail.com
