Response of the Kenyan Government and the UNHCR
In 1993 Human Rights Watch found that the Kenyan government's response to the rampant incidence of rape had been woefully inadequate. The government provided inadequate security around the camps and made no concerted effort to arrest or prosecute those responsible for the widespread rape. In part, this was due to the general insecurity in the area and the fact that the police authorities were themselves targets of attack by the local bandits. However, the government's failure to investigate and prosecute rape is also a direct result of law enforcement officials' refusal to treat such claims seriously.
One year later, Human Rights Watch found during a follow-up mission that the situation had changed for the better, due to efforts by the UNHCR and the Kenyan government. In September 1994 Human Rights Watch visited the camps in North Eastern Province and interviewed UNHCR officials, Kenyan police, relief workers and a Kenya organization of women lawyers.61 The UNHCR had introduced fencing around the refugee camps and cooperated with the Kenyan police to promote greater physical safety. With financial assistance from the international donor community, the UNHCR had also established counseling and medical services for rape victims and had contracted FIDA, a women lawyers' organization, to assist refugee women to seek legal redress. For its part, the Kenyan government augmented police presence in the camps, ordered more frequent police patrols (including bi-monthly helicopter patrols), and had the UNHCR provide limited training in humanitarian and human rights law for police. As a result of these combined preventive efforts, the number of reported rapes of Somali refugee women andgirls had fallen significantly from more than 200 cases in 1993 to approximately fifty reported rapes through August in 1994.
To date, there are important problems remaining, however, which the UNHCR and the Kenyan government have not yet tackled. First, although the number of night-time attacks has decreased, young refugee girls constitute a higher percentage of all rape victims than ever. Somali girls are traditionally responsible for fetching firewood and herding goats, activities that require them to leave the relative security of the camps. The UNHCR has yet to take steps to lessen the need for women and girls to leave the camps.
Second, justice continues to elude rape survivors, since impunity for rapists remains the norm rather than the exception. Even with legal counsel for the victims, the odds of convicting the perpetrator are distressingly slim. While police response to allegations of rape has been poor generally, the Kenyan police have been particularly reluctant to investigate cases implicating members of their own rank and file.
Third, the long distance to the nearest court in Garissa (over one hundred kilometers), coupled with an overburdened court calendar, has caused long delays in prosecution. According to Kenyan lawyers, unless the Kenyan government upgrades the police post in the Dadaab area to a full-fledged police station, no magistrate can be assigned to hear cases in the area.
Lastly, there are no women police officers posted in the Dadaab area. Despite assurances from the Kenyan government that it would build adequate police barracks for policewomen to be assigned to the camp area, police officers have told Human Rights Watch that a police housing shortage continues to be the reason why there is not a single woman officer protecting the refugee population made up largely of women and children.
As these continuing problems indicate, despite the reduction in the overall incidence of rape, the Kenyan government and UNHCR must remain vigilant in carrying out their protection duties towards refugees in Kenya. While violence against refugees in the Somali refugee camps in North Eastern Kenya is by no means eradicated, the improvements in the situation indicate that decisive action by the international community and the host government can improve the lives of refugee women. The international community should recognize the efforts made to date by the Kenyan government and UNHCR and assist them to address the remaining problems.
61 In 1994, the UNHCR would not permit Human Rights Watch individual interviews with the refugee women themselves.
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