I just wrote about this in the Cassandra Complexity, a blog I help co-edit with friends but here's a rougher more personal account.
August 19 is World Humanitarian Day where humanitarian aid workers like me remember our colleagues who were killed in the line of duty. Today, I am also now thinking about the particular vulnerability that women face: being raped in the line of duty.
A few days ago, the AP published a report about the South Sudanese army's attacks on a popular expatriate lodging, "Terrain House", in Juba, Sudan where three female expatriate aid workers were raped by multiple soldiers. The rage and sadness I felt about the UN's refusal to deploy peacekeepers to protect these civilians threw me into a sad dark place. I'm currently on sabbatical in Sarajevo, Bosnia and this sadness was compounded by all the dark European movies I had been watching at the Sarajevo Film Festival. I cried through the movie Cameraperson because it had a lot of scenes that hit close to home - women chopping wood in Zalingei (reminded me of almost getting shot on my way to Kass in South Darfur), a baby being born and dying in Nigeria (reminded me of dying babies in Haiti post-earthquake in MSF's obstetric hospital, Afghanistan (the fear I felt there driving around at night), and scenes from Liberia (where I had my first security fright thanks to a dumbass Congolese man that I was traveling with). I was already feeling raw when I read this report.
I then learned that the US Embassy (my Embassy!) had also failed to do ANYTHING to protect these
American citizens and had "made some phone calls." Eventually the
Government of Sudan sent in someone to rescue the people but the local staff of
the hotel and 3 women were left behind to be rescued the next day by a private
security force. What must it have felt like to be the people "left
behind"? I couldn't stop myself from instantly imagining myself as one of the three expatriate women
left overnight with the rapist soldiers. It's every woman's worst nightmare. For my sanity, I had to stop.
Aid workers started lamenting this issue and expressing our rage and sadness. Female aid workers everywhere are deeply shaken
by this event. Some are privately expressing how afraid they feel but that they feel worse for abandoning South Sudanese women who bear the brunt of the sexual violence. The most frustrating part was the false sense of security that
being nearby the peacekeepers provided. Our so-called "safety and security systems" (including useless TRIP forms filled out on line) are not
always going to be there. It's obvious that we, as women, are usually
alone out there sometimes, and as every woman everywhere in the world has
learned since puberty, you have to take responsibility for your own safety and
security.
Our "security professionals" are often ignoring
women's needs or have REALLY outdated viewpoints on how women can protect
themselves. In Bangkok, at the recent women's day- our security personnel at
the UN told women that they should "smile more" and in Jordan, the
UNHCR security personnel who was giving me a brief there said I should
"dress decently" (to which I responded, since I'm a decent person anything
I wear is, by definition, decent).
I'm too angry and sad to write a more professional polished
piece - so I give you instead, a piece that i wrote about this in 2012. It was inspired by events that took place in 2012 after I had finished a year working in Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan for the UN. I took a Hostile Environment Awareness Training course before I went to Libya with the British government for the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. I was really nervous as in mid 2011, there had been an attack on the hotel where i had worked in Kabul right after I left and I realized I had never felt safe in that country. I didn't know how I would react to the simulated situation. I was most nervous about the "fake kidnapping" part - and as it turns out - I was fine, but one of my colleagues was not. She was a survivor and experienced a flashback during this section of the training. Our mostly male trainers had no psychologist on standby and were not prepared to support her so I was called in. In order to deal with it, I decided to take action and become an activist on this issue.
Gender-based Violence and Security
This blog post was published by USAID to coincide with the 16
Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence event, “Who Takes Care of the
Caregivers? Providing Care and Safety for Staff in Gender-based Violence
Settings,” taking place on Thursday, Nov. 29th 2012 in Washington DC, hosted by
the Inter-Agency Gender Working Group, funded by USAID. It is no longer
available online but a copy of it can be found here.
Gender-based Violence (GBV) is an issue that impacts aid workers
– not just beneficiaries and not just staff that works in GBV settings. This
post examines agencies’ duty to care for their workers by preventing and
responding to GBV.
“Keeping International Workers Safe:
Preventing and Responding to Gender-based Violence”
Sarah Martin, Consultant and Specialist on
Prevention and Response to Gender-based Violence
The sexual assault of the journalists Lara
Logan, Mona Eltahawy and two unnamed British and French journalists in Egypt
shocked the world and brought the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) against
Westerners working in conflict areas to the forefront. Clearly GBV does not
only affect the "locals" in these areas. Not only are journalists at
risk but also aid workers–and not just in conflict settings or in GBV program
areas.
I recently interviewed a large cross section
of women travelers who work in a number of fields (including international
development, human rights, humanitarian action and international business) about
their experiences as women while traveling and working
overseas*. Many of them brought up their frustration that sexual
harassment and sexual assault were never raised in security trainings and that
agencies refused to address this as a real security concern. Increasingly, aid
agencies are providing more “realistic” security trainings that simulate
“hostile environments to prepare their employees for gunfire, kidnappings and
other events in the field.” While some of these trainings talk about
sexual assault, there are no discussions of how to prevent sexual assault or
how to react or support colleagues if they are assaulted. Sexual harassment in
the workplace as a security issue is often ignored. In addition, the purveyors
of these trainings are mostly male and show little awareness to the issue of
sexual assault or the gender concerns of female trainees. I recently attended
one such training where one of the participants relived her own sexual assault
from years ago while undergoing a simulated “kidnapping.” While they took her
out of the simulation, there were no psychologists or female trainers available
to talk to her.
Female development and aid workers have the
same security concerns as their male counterparts: crime and landmine accidents
and armed robberies do not discriminate. Security measures, trainings, and
manuals are the same for men and women, and most agencies take a ‘gender-blind’
approach to security. Most security officers are men, and many of them come
from a military background. This gender-blind approach to security, however,
leaves out a major issue. Women also face another security threat
that most men do not encounter – gender-based violence, namely sexual
harassment and sexual violence.
Rape myths promote the false idea that women are
only sexually assaulted by strangers. While this can happen, women are much
more likely to be attacked by someone familiar to them – a co-worker, a driver,
or a friend. Most of the women I interviewed shared stories about fending off
sexual harassment by colleagues or actual cases of sexual assault in the
field.
Rarely is their organization prepared to
handle these issues. While there has been some action taken on “building safe
organizations” – the focus has been preventing sexual exploitation of our beneficiaries
by our staff. But there is not sufficient attention paid to sexual harassment
of our staff by our staff or adequate support for staff that have been sexually
assaulted. There is little information in the security manuals that I have
reviewed about what medical care a survivor may need or what rights a sexual
assault survivor might have. Nor is there guidance on reporting to local
authorities, human resources or guarantees of confidentiality. Responsible
employers must be prepared to understand and deal with the fact that their
employees might become victims of sexual assault [1] and should be
prepared to support them. This means bringing the issue of sexual assault up in
security trainings and sensitizing the trainers and security personnel on how
to address the issue – but not by restricting women’s access to “dangerous
areas” but by making sure female employees are informed of the dangers,
provided with information on how to protect themselves, and given sensitive and
adequate support by their organizations in case the worst happens.
[1] Global statistics
show that 1 out of 3 women has experienced some form of sexual harassment or
assault.
* From the chapter I wrote entitled “Sexual Assault:
Preventing And Responding As An International Travelers in
the book Personal Security: A Guide for International Travelers, by
Tanya Spencer, ISBN: 9781466559448 commissioned and published by
Taylor and Francis, LLC.
