Tuesday, June 22, 2021

USA: Amnesty International, National Refugee Day - ONLINE ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, 6-18-2021

Today, we reflect on the importance of humanitarian protection for women all over the world. Read on for information about the Safe from the Start Act, which will help protect refugee and migrant women and girls globally. If you like what you read, invite a friend to subscribe!


Today, we reflect on the importance of humanitarian protection for women all over the world. Read on for information about the Safe from the Start Act, which will help protect refugee and migrant women and girls globally. If you like what you read, invite a friend to subscribe.

 

When emergencies force women and girls to flee from their homes as refugees or internally displaced people within their own countries, they face an increased risk of gender-based violence, including sexual assault, rape, intimate partner violence, child marriage, human trafficking, and even exploitation by humanitarian personnel who are supposed to protect them. 

 

Some emergencies are created by armed conflict, such as the current hostilities in Tigray, Ethiopia. Soldiers from both the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies have used systematic sexual assault and torture of women and girls as a weapon of war to humiliate, traumatize, terrorize and control the whole local population.
 
Other emergencies result from natural disasters.  For example, the recent volcanic eruption of Mount Nyiragongo near Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo forced more than 400,000 residents to flee, including 88,000 women of childbearing age, and at least 12,200 of them pregnant.  There is an urgent need for sexual and reproductive health services to care for pregnant women, newborn babies and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
 

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