Refugee and Displaced Women: 60 Years of Progress and Setbacks

This articles traces the progress and identifies the setbacks in providing equal and effective protection to female as well as male refugees, with reference to two important events in female refugee protection: 1) the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; and 2) the Executive Committee of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) adoption of the Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women. The latter event identified certain gaps in the protection of at-risk refugee women and girls. This article focuses on three such gaps: legal protection, physical security, and social and economic rights. The article suggests that, to address these gaps, it is necessary to adopt policies and programs that will enable refugee women to become actively involved in decisions that affect them and their familiesthese include improving access to employment, credit, education, skills training and adequate and safe housing; protection of refugee women against sexual exploitation; and access to health care services. The author argues that the first step in ensuring these reforms are made is the improvement of data collection.