Women in African Refugee Camps: Gender Based Violence against Female Refugees: The case of Mai Ayni Refugee Camp, Northern Ethiopia

The study has found that female refugees in refugee camp were exposed to sexual violence, physical violence and socio-economic violence including attempt rape, rape, gang rape, physical injuries, discrimination and stigmatization and denial of access to services. The book also disclosed that male refugees and intimate partners of female refugees were the prime gender based violence perpetrators of female refugees in Mai Ayni refugee camp. Moreover, the study revealed that idleness, economic dependency, physical insecurity, lack of awareness, collapse of social and family structure as well as poor reporting, coordination and legal enforcement mechanisms were identified as causes/risk factors for gender based violence against female refugees in refugee camp. Moreover, men’s feeling of ‘loss of power’ in the camp, which challenges male’s identity as superior to female, led male refugees to anger and makes female refugees vulnerable to different forms of gender based violence. Consequently, because of gender based violence, female refugees in refugee camp have short and long lasting damaging consequence on their life in terms of health, physical and psycho-social.