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Author Archives: mp
Intervention Against Sexual Violence Committed by Humanitarian Aid Workers … but not good enough.
I’ve finally found an empirically based intervention that could potentially be considered transformative. First , for those of you who are new to my blog posts, I have been writing about sexual violence in refugee camps, particularly in camps in Somalia. As I’ve discussed, the situation is particularly dire there – there have been back-to-back [...]
Food Security and Sexual Violence
One thing that we read about in class this week briefly was food distribution in refugee camps and how sometimes those distributing food withhold the food from women in exchange for sex acts, or give women more than their ration in exchange for sex acts. I had a difficult time again this week in finding [...]
Are women’s rights and bodies considered worth protecting?
Attempting to take Professor Murray’s advice, I searched long and hard for a positive intervention that was empirically proven to curtail sexual violence in refugee camps or conflict areas. This proved a difficult task. It was easier to find information about interventions in the U.S. – self-defense courses and educating bystanders and such. However, these [...]
Hope in “one of the 5 worst places in the world for women?”
I’ve decided to narrow my blog posts to focus on sexual violence against Somali refugee women and girls in internally displaced person (IDP) and refugee camps. To recap about the current situation in Somalia, successive droughts and a famine starting in July 2011 exacerbated violence that has already been occurring in that country for the [...]
Famine and the rising sexual violence in Somalia
I have a friend who fled Somalia as a three year old (with her 16 year old mother!) in 1991, around the time that the civil war first began in Somalia. They were admitted into the U.S. as refugees. Still today – 20 years later – Somalia has nearly 1.5 million internally displaced persons and [...]
FGM, Cultural Relativism, and Universal Human Rights
Though straying a little from my focus on refugee women, this week I want to talk about sexual violence, cultural relativism, and universal human rights. I particularly want to talk about FGM (and I’m referring to FGM on children), and I feel this is somewhat relevant because it affects many refugee girls and women. I [...]
What is a refugee? Why do I care so much?
I plan to blog on sexual violence in refugee camps and the special vulnerability of women and girls there. For this first post however, I want to start by defining “refugee” and listing some facts about refugees and internally displaced persons so those less familiar with this topic have a better general understanding. Then, I [...]
Borrowing Empowering Interventions: City of Joy and a Women-Only Community