To the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:

As noted in the introduction to this section, the UNHCR has developed two sets of guidelines for refugee protection: (1) Guidelines for the Protection of Refugee Women and (2) Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and Response. We call on the UNHCR to step up efforts to implement these guidelines fully and vigorously in all refugee camps. In particular, we emphasize that:

· The UNHCR should ensure physical security in the refugee camps.

· The UNHCR should organize inter-agency meetings with other relief organizations and relevant government agencies, as well as the refugees themselves, to develop a plan of action to prevent sexual violence. Priority should be given to the protection needs of unaccompanied refugee women and girls, who are often the most vulnerable groups.

· The UNHCR should ensure that appropriate medical care, including psychological counseling, is provided to refugee women and girls, with particular emphasis on female rape survivors, including those who have become pregnant as a result of rape. These health providers should be women, if at all possible, given cultural sensitivities that may inhibit a woman from seeking medical assistance from male health care workers. Health care workers should be sensitized to the fact that women will often be reluctant to speak of sexual assault. In areas where female genital mutilation is practiced, health care providers should be trained to address the specific medical complications which may ensue to raped women who have undergone the practice.

· The UNHCR employees and the staff of private relief agencies under contract to the UNHCR must be made aware, through appropriate training, of the widespread sexual violence against refugee and displaced women, and all protection programs should address this issue. Female staff should be employed to work with women refugees to identify their concerns. Refugee and displaced women who have been raped should be treated in a confidential and sensitive manner.

· Refugee protection programs should include community education within refugee camps to protect rape survivors from further stigmatization, ostracism or punishment by their own communities. Women's experience of rape can be rendered even more traumatic by cultural or religious views that blame the victim.

· The UNHCR should assign a higher percentage of female protection officers, field interpreters, health workers and counselors to the camps.

· In collaboration with other humanitarian relief agencies, the UNHCR should provide relief provisions directly to women, especially women heads of households, to reduce the potential for sexual extortion.

· Where possible, the UNHCR should identify and promote alternatives to refugee camps.

· The concept of international protection should be broadened to provide greater protection to internally displaced persons, including women. The UNHCR should work with other U.N. agencies to ensure that standards are developed for the protection of internally displaced persons. These standards should include protections to ensure that displaced women are not the object of sexual violence.

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