March 2000, Vol.7, No.1

Reports from the Field

"Lost Sudanese Boys" Prioritized: Girls Left Behing in Kakuma Refugee Camp
By: Åsa Frostfeldt

Among the most visible victims of human rights abuses are people who face forced migration. The bitter conflict in Sudan has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In Northern Kenya, thousands of Sudanese boys, who refuse to join the resistance movement, have settled down in Kakuma Refugee Camp (KRC) in the hope of a better life.

While these so-called "lost Sudanese boys" have received substantial attention from the international society, the refugee girls seems to have been forgotten.

When delegations of state officials "go on tour" in the refugee camps, they usually arrive in the morning and leave in the afternoon. In other words, they only get to see what the responsible officials in the camps want them to see. The cars carrying the delegations drive through the camps as if on a safari, making the refugees feel like animals on display. Given high security restrictions, only a few selected refugees are usually allowed to meet the delegations. Many voices are never heard, and most of the time those unheard voices are the voices of women and girls.

KRC, located 127 km south of the Sudan/Kenyan border, was established in 1992 as a temporary solution to deal with the huge influx of Sudanese refugees. Eight years later, the seemingly unending civil war in the Sudan has forced approximately 60,000 Sudanese refugees to settle in KRC, along with an additional 30,000 refugees from other East and Central African countries.

As the refugees continue to pour in daily, the KRC is slowly being transformed from a temporary camp into a permanent village.

In September 1998, the US State Department had announced that it would organize the resettlement of 12,000 African refugees to the United States. In this context, it called for special protection for the "lost Sudanese boys". To be eligible for resettlement, the boys have to be unaccompanied minors -- that is orphan boys below the age of 18.

When this announcement spread through the war-zone, desperate families becgan sending their sons to KRC so they would be eligible for resettlement. Forty-five per cent of the currently registered refugees in KRC are below the age of 17. However, so far, not much has been done to follow up on this promised US-sponsored resettlement program.

In meantime, violence and substance abuse in the camps have been increasing at an alarming rate. A large number of KRC inhabitants are traumatized male refugees who are now underemployed. The consumption of homemade beer and miraa, a local stimulant, only increases the violence in the camp. Many of these "lost boys" refuse to work in their community or even go to school as they hopefully await resettlement to the US. And while violent incidents involving these young men are routinely reported to the NGO social workers, for many reasons, they go unnoticed when the victims are women.

Young girls, widows, and single mothers tend to be particularly "easy targets" for sexual and gender-based violence. The female refugees in KRC live with a constant fear of rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, early and/or forced marriage, dowry-related violence, slavery, child abduction, and female genital mutilation, and many are denied the right to education. The under-reporting of violence against women is often related to language and cultural barriers, lack of information, and the stigmatization connected to sexual and gender-based violence. As a result, the female victims of camp violence tend to remain mute and "invisible".

When foreign embassies recruit refugees from the camps, they tend to look for skilled people who have the potential to financially support themselves after resettlement. Priority goes to the young male refugees, since the girls are considered uneducated. The reasons for their lack of education are many. The families of many of the girls force them to drop out of school when they get their first period, at around 14 or 15 years old. Numerous girls do not have access to female hygiene products and further, the families consider them to be ready for marriage by that time. Sometimes, the girls are abducted by their relatives and taken back to Sudan for marriage so that their fathers or relatives can get the dowry, which is their main source of income. Many girls also drop out of school because of the heavy workload that is imposed on them at home. There have been suggestions that a boarding school should be established for the Sudanese girls. However, there has been no follow-up on these plans either because of a lack of resources.

*Åsa Frostfeldt worked as a volunteer in the Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya, May-July 1999, with the Lutheran World Federation. She is currently a volunteer at HRI.