GENEVA, 13 February 2013 (ICMC) -- Gender-based violence (GBV) is often reduced to rape and conceived of as an instrument of war. Yet that does not show the full picture: domestic violence against children and women is far more common, especially among refugees who have escaped violence in their home countries to find a first asylum.

This violence stems from their very displacement, the trauma they have experienced and the poverty, inoccupation, overcrowding, and changed family power dynamics they are now exposed to.

This Agence France Presse article (courtesy of France 24) shows how Syrian refugees -- especially women and children – are doubly victimized, being subject to domestic violence after having fled a civil war.

Violence follows Syrian refugee women and children
5 February 2013

As if the war which drove them out of Syria and the hardships of exile were not enough, refugee women and children in Lebanon are facing domestic violence born of stress, deprivation and frustration.

"Many women have already suffered violent shocks because of the army and the war, and now it's their families," said Syrian medic Ghazi Aswad, who treats dozens of women each day in a clinic in the north Lebanese city of Tripoli.

"Many women have suffered violence in their homes, sometimes at the hands of their husbands," Aswad added. Read more<

GBV includes verbal abuse as well as financial, legal and psychological deprivation techniques designed to control and disempower the victims. The perpetrators of such violence can be spouses, parents, siblings, and members of the refugee community, employers, or even the authorities.

Refugee women in Malaysia are often raised in cultures that promote gender inequality, if not outright submission to men. Extreme poverty forces many of the almost 90,000 refugees who reside in Kuala Lumpur, to live in squalid, overcrowded apartments, with men, women and children all living in close quarters.

Malaysia is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol and thus does not recognize refugee status. This means refugees -- primarily ethnic Burmese minorities fleeing persecution, such as the Chin, Kachin, Mon or the Rohingya, are even more vulnerable to human rights abuses.

Refugee children are not permitted to attend public schools and their parents are not allowed to work. Victims of violence are reluctant to speak out for a variety of cultural, financial and legal reasons.

To combat GBV in Malaysia and offer emergency protection and assistance to victims, ICMC works in partnership with UNCHR and local NGOs including the Pusat Kebajikan Good Shepherd Sisters (PKGS) and the Women’s Aid Organization (WAO).

ICMC activities there include the creation of a protection corps made up of refugee women from the many Burmese ethnic groups, outreach, awareness-raising and child-protection training activities (coloring book as an example of ICMC awareness-raising communication tools for children<), a GBV hotline for the refugee community, shelter capacity, emergency health care and auxiliary services such as interpretation, transportation and psychosocial support for survivors of GBV.

Finally, ICMC provides USD4,000 grants for community-based projects to address GBV also offering the technical support needed to run them.

For more information on this issue, see the Guidelines for Prevention and Response to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons< that UNHCR in 2003 published to help protect refugees, or the United Nations Population Fund report on the evolution of women after conflict and post-conflict situations From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal<.